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From a story William Morris read to his daughters to an iconic design; Brother Rabbit

22nd May 2017

Welcome to our new blog series which revolves around all our current designs before we launch our new one! Below is a sneak peak of the new design as well as an insight into how colours are chosen for a new design of ours. Throughout the process, we work closely with the printers and receive many strike offs to make sure it’s perfect. Our new design is excitingly close to being perfected so stay tuned!

Our Brother Rabbit design was first produced in May 1882. It was one of nineteen designs registered at the Patent Office between 1881-1882 by Morris- seventeen of these were designed for the indigo- discharge method of printing. This method stands in stark contrast to the printing we see today on machines; this took three days to complete. The cloth was submerged in an indigo vat in order to dye it all over to a uniform blue colour. Then it was bleached with a bleaching reagent to reduce the colour to the desired shade of blue for the base colour. Mordants are then applied to the bleached parts and then the cloth immersed in a madder vat to give it the proper tint. The excess colour was then cleaned off and to ensure the colours on the fabric won’t run once produced, they were set at boiling point by passing the fabric through soap. Laid outside with the printed side face up, the white of the design was purified to finish the job- a laborious job to create a work of art; worth it though to see the beautiful and intricate designs Morris produced.

The Uncle Remus Stories were written by J.C. Harris and Morris read them to his children Jenny and May at their home Kelmscott Manor. The birds in the design were drawn by Morris’ close friend Philip Webb.

Nowadays, our products are both printed and manufactured in the UK, are licensed designs by William Morris, and are printed both size and colour-wise to our own specifications to best suit our products.

Below are a few of our Brother Rabbit design items- our tote bags fitted in perfectly in Venice, but our full range is viewable here- it would look great on your table and throughout your kitchen in accessories this summer time!

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Us 🤝 simple napkin folding 🎀
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A really simple napkin fold for your Easter table! 🐣 We used a napkin ring but you could use ribbon or twine, whatever you’ve got! 🐰
Just fold the napkin into a triangle and roll up from the point until you can fold it in half to make the ears 🐇 You could put a little creme egg in there as an extra treat 🤎
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Hopping into Easter week with a fab 10% off our website, just use code: EASTER on our website 🐣
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Have you seen our new remnants and bundle section on our website? 🪡 Perfect for quilting, sewing and crafting, they’re all in varying sizes and we’ll keep it constantly updated 🧵
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Layering florals on florals this Spring 🪻🌷
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The start of the Easter tablescapes this weekend 🐣 We cant resist a little rabbit napkin, so easy and so effective we can post a reel on how to do the napkin fold! 🐰 This is our pvc fabric in William Morris Brother Rabbit red which is perfect for on the table as it simply wipes clean so isn’t an issue for any spills 🧼 
We know that seasonal tablescapes whilst looking amazing can often seem really expensive on Instagram so we wanted to prove that with a simple napkin fold and a few little inexpensive decor bits it can be wonderfully seasonal yet affordable and used every year - the carrots are from @poundland and the cute little sheep are from @sainsburys 🐑
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Spring has truly sprung this week and we’re looking forward to Easter 🐣 Our William Morris Daisy was looking gorgeous on the table with a little Easter treat 🐰
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One of the crafters among us couldn’t help but steal some of our new designs from work to create a gorgeous quilted bag from all our original designs to take to Chicago with them on holiday 🤍 For all of us back home in Yorkshire we’re a little jealous seeing all the holiday snaps of the bag round the city! ✨ All these designs are now available on our website 🥰
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It’s back in stock!! 🍓 Our cotton Strawberry Thief blue licensed William Morris design is now back in stock - and digitally printed 🌿 We hope you can tell how crisp the design is from this video, the details within the design are so clear in the digital print which is fabulous becuase there’s so many beautiful details within all Morris designs 🎨
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The colours of Compton 😍 did you know some of our designs are now digitally printed? 🤎 digital print gives top quality printing design with a really crisp finish that brings to life the whole design and its details, of course, we’re still printing in the UK 🇬🇧
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Pack an order with us of our new quilting fabrics 🌿 These are all our exclusive designs that are now available on our website, and each beautiful design has been faithfully resorted from our French archive, we wonder what they’ll be made into 🤍
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A tea towel hanging in the kitchen, bringing floral magic easily into the home 🌿 Can you believe William Morris designed Willow Bough in 1887? It’s such a timeless design we love imagining how many people throughout the years have chosen to have it decorating their homes 🤍 
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Use code: birthday for 20% off our entire website 🌿 Includes our fabulous fabric by the half metre, tablewear & kitchenware 🤍 
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We’re excited to announce our new range of fabrics, perfect for quilting 🪡 they are all from our exclusive French archive which dates from the late 1800s-early 1900s ⚜️ With a new range we were chatting about what to name each design, so as a female founded and run business, we decided to name them after some important women in our lives 🤍 We’re digitally printing this fabric so it’s amazing quality, but there’s limited stock of each design so let us know which designs you love ☺️
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Waiting patiently for peony season… 🫶🏻
On the table; our William Morris Willow Bough 🌿
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Why wouldn’t we celebrate William Morris’ birthday with one of our biggest sales of the year! Hurry, it’s tonight and tomorrow only, take 20% off everything on our website with code; BIRTHDAY 🌿 
Born on this day in 1834, William Morris was an incredible talent. His designs are as timeless and popular today as ever, so long after they were designed 🎨 He also was a poet, writer and socialist activist who was involved in the arts and crafts movement and worked hard to keep traditional British textiles, he opened his own mill, Merton Abbey Mills 🌿 there’s so many interesting aspects of his life that he seemed to live many lives at once, when you’re that talented it must be hard to pick just one passion! 🌿 Happy Birthday William, thank you for all the stunning designs we print here in the UK just as he was passionate about all those years ago! 🇬🇧
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Happy first day of Spring 🌷what’s your favourite thing about spring? 🌱 Ours is of course all the stunning flowers blooming all around us 🪴 To get 15% off our website to bring some florals indoors, use code; SPRING at checkout on our website 🤍
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Our fat quarters are ideal for quilting or patchwork projects, in all our licensed William Morris designs we also sell them in bundles 🌿 Our website has 15% off everything at the moment with code; SPRING 🌷
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A bit of a different one today, and we’re very amateur so don’t zoom in on our planting too much, but isn’t spring lovely tidying up the greenhouse ready to plant in? 🌱 Next up is getting some tomato plants and might even take on a dahlia or two! 🤍 If you’re a gardener and know how to keep this grape vine alive, do let us know how 😂
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