Quilted sea

A trip to the nearby but much more bustling town of Cardigan, or in Welsh Aberteifi (mouth of the river Teifi), once a significant port for coastal and global trade and for emigration, whence thousands of individuals and families left Wales to  settle  and put down roots on the other side of the Atlantic, or the world.

These days it has a lively art and crafting tradition too. I've blipped the Giant Cardigan before, a tapestry map of the town in the shape of that garment, and I thought I'd blipped the embroidered estuary too but no way can I find it. No matter, because today I lighted upon the latest community effort in the form of the Sea Quilt which was hanging in the entrance to the castle. 

Created by the Cardigan Heritage Textiles Group 
It celebrates the shipping connections Cardigan had with the rest of the world. More than 300 ships were registered in Cardigan port in the early 1880s. Welsh women would take everything they needed with them to make a quilt on their epic journeys from Wales to Australia and America, where they would have a great influence on the Amish quilters in years to come.


Depicted on the quilt  the trade and migration routes fan out from Cardigan to places up and down the coast of Wales and across to Irish ports, while embroidered round the edge are far-flung destinations  from New Brunswick to Guttenberg,  Liverpool to Patagonia. Gibralter to Dundee.

More images in extras. I especially like the fishers with button faces.