By Design * Textile Art Group * Lymington Arts Festival Until 20 June

I've just been down to the sea again - 'the lonely sea and the sky'. Except it was one of those wonderful sunny, blowy days walking down the delightful Georgian High Street in Lymington to the harbour on the old quay. Preparing for the second of two Embroiderers' Guild talks, the first having been to the excellent South Somerset Guild, and fortunate enough to have been invited by the Lymington Guild during their Arts Festival Week, I was able to visit not one but two stunning quilt exhibitions.

By Design a textile art group are presenting 22 quilts in pairs, each pair based upon different interpretations of the same theme. I felt this pair of quilts portrayed the essence of the day for you.Voyage to Thule is designed and executed by Christine Restall.
Composed of hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny silk squares it represents the wake of a ship and is overprinted with the words of the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield.

And here you can see a group interpretation of the sea theme titled In The Wake. Click here to read more about the work of By Design I should add that the Lymington Embroiderers' Guild is also an excellent group - and I came away with a nice book for a special giveaway. Hannah Gilpin will be published tomorrow - we are just putting the finishing touches to a little eBook to go with the chart which contains 3 samplers by Hannah and 4 by her sister Ann.