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24th March 2016
If you’ve been on Google today, you might have seen a few of the Google Doodles which are celebrating William Morris. Now, you might have noticed that we think he’s pretty great all year round, but since it’s his birthday, and we’ve seen articles discussing who he is and why his legacy lives on, we thought we’d tell you a bit about him!
Morris was born in Walthamstow on March 24th, 1834. He became a textile designer and artist, a writer, poet and a socialist who was both heavily involved and influential in the English Arts and Crafts movement, and with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Originally, after being educated at Oxford, he trained as an architect, which we have spoken about in past blogs, however he was highly interested in the arts, and, after being influenced by some of the big names in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood including Rossetti became more involved in the arts. Together with these friends, he created art that has stood the test of time, today many of the stain glass windows they designed remain in England’s churches, St James’ Palace in London being one of their first commissions; if you research into what they created together, their work is vast and rather beautiful.
He married Jane Burden in 1859, who modelled in many of the Pre-Raphaelites art work, she was an unconventional beauty, but became one of their favourite models. Philip Webb, Morris’ friend, was commissioned to build them a house on some land he had bought in Kent, which at that time was a rural area (today, Bexleyheath is a suburb of London.) If you’ve ever visited Red House, you’ll know Webb did a great job of creating the home Morris envisioned; a modern home which would be ‘medieval in spirit.’ He furnished the house himself, a visit will show you the Morris’ wallpaper and designs throughout the home. He created these with the help of a few friends, since he was particular in what he wanted and felt he couldn’t find that anywhere, from the success of this, a business was born; Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. This company produced a range of domestic furniture and wallpaper (again, because Morris couldn’t find any he liked enough to use in his home.)
If you’ve been looking into Morris today, curious about what today’s Google Doodle is, you might have caught that he was also a rather successful writer and poet along with his artistic talents. Quite frankly, we don’t know how he juggled so many talents at once, all with such success!
He founded SPAB, something that is still running today, which was the ‘Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings’ in 1877; which was a response to the destruction of original features of historical buildings in the name of ‘restoration.’ We have him to thank then, that so many historic buildings remain today in such a good and true construction- public and professional restorers are today taught by SPAG how to correctly restore historic buildings.
His life was much more than a handful of accomplishments written in a blog or on a news site for the day, in his lifetime he accomplished a great deal, and even more remarkably- the things he did over 100 years ago, remain today and still affect us now. The fact his designs are still being printed, bought and loved today as much as ever, show what a great and imaginative artist he was. If you fancy learning more, have a look back at our past blogs to read more about his life and those of his friends.
Happy Birthday William Morris! What is your favourite design of his? Ours (right now!) is his Willow Bough design- in blue or green, we can’t decide!
Posted in William Morris by Laura
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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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #pvcfabric #greenhouse #greenhousegardening #tidymygreenhouse #gardening #gardeninglove #flowergarden #greenhousegardening #mygreenhouse #springplanting #springgarden #springgardening #springgardeningtips
Celebrating International Women’s Day today 🤍 As a female founded and run business, it’s always important for us to look at the women throughout history that have been empowered and made a difference. Few have made such a difference than May Morris, not only an expert in embroidery and design, she ran the embroidery department at her father’s business, Morris & Co. She also founded the Women’s Guild of Arts as the Art Workers Guild did not admit women - like her father was a true pioneer at the time with her talent and activities to progress women’s rights - a remarkable woman indeed 🌿 We were lucky enough to see some stunning original May Morris embroideries at our friends @williammorrissocietyuk - she was a true talent 🧵🪡
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Give us all the spring florals, we’re absolutely ready for the blooms to bloom this spring 🌷🌿 To celebrate, use code: SPRING on our website for 15% off everything (including our beautiful spring sale with exclusive colour ways and different products!) 🌱 Hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine today 🌞
Beautiful William Morris Daisy is on the table today 🌼
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#springtime #springflowers #springflowers🌸🌺🌼🌷❤️ #floralsyourway #floralsforspring #williammorris #morris #morrismagpie #preraphaelite #daisy
Celebrating World Book day with a coffee meeting over one of our favourite books; our French archive ⚜️ Filled to the brim with beautiful designs, we might have picked a couple to be our new designs! Quilters, you’re going to want to watch this space! 🫶🏻 If anyone’s interested in how we bring a new design to life, let us know we’d be happy to film it for you! 🥰
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#floraltablecloth #williammorris #brotherrabbit #frencharchive #quiltingfabric #printedintheuk #worldbookday #bookday #newdesign #independantbusiness #florals #sewistsofinstagram #haberdashery
A little afternoon tea set up 🧸 Using stunning Willow Bough blue, we thought this is a perfect William Morris kids afternoon tea party 🤍
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#williammorris #willowbough #blueflorals #blueandwhite #blueandwhitehome #preraphaelite #afternoontea #teddybearspicnic #kidspartyideas #peterrabbit #peterrabbitparty
Prepping some beautiful blooms 🌷 Got to include our fabulous William Morris tea towels of course 🩷
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#floralhome #myfloraldays #myfloraljoys #myfloralgaff #flowers #flowerstagram #williammorris #preraphaelite #williammorrisfabric #independantbusiness
What do you think to our new tote bags? ✨ Now in cotton fabrics, we’ve been perfecting the samples for weeks and they got stolen out the office and taken on a cruise by one of our team who thought they’d be the ideal holiday totes 🤍 what do you think? Shall we make these part of our range? ♥️
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabric #totebag #totebags #cunard #cruiselife #smallbusiness #independantbusiness #goldenlily #willowbough
Stunning Daisy is on the table 🫶🏻 Daisy was the first design William Morris produced so it’s always such a special one amongst his fans ✨
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#floraltablecloth #placemats #placematset #daisy #williammorrisdesign #williammorris #williammorrisfabric #fabric #floralfabric #florals #floraltable
Pack a fabric stack order with us ✨ which William Morris design is your fave? 🤎
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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabrics #fabric #fabricstack #fabricstash #packanorderwithme
Oh Compton we love you! 🧡 All the details within Compton are so stunning, the winding leaves and florals, did you know it was the last design Morris himself before he passed? 🤎
featuring; William Morris Compton, our licensed digitally printed design ✨
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#compton #comptondesign #williammorrisdesign #williammorris #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisfabrics #fabrics #fabric #floralfabric #digitallyprinted #ukindependentbusiness #craftingfabric
Back in stock alert! 🐇 One of our all time favourite designs is William Morris Brother Rabbit and we’ve just digitally printed it on cotton in the red everyone has always loved so much from our licensed collection 🥰
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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabrics #fabric #brotherrabbit #brerrabbit #digitalprint #printedintheuk #preraphaelite #floraldesigner
📣 We’ve got a big announcement! 📣 We are now digitally printing our fabrics 🎉 Still printed in the United Kingdom (of course!) we always aim to bring you the highest quality, licensed William Morris designs (and exclusive florals but more on that later..) and by digitally printing them we can really focus on the details within the fabric, you can see how crisp all the aspects within the design are here: the little strawberries and the birds are so clear in the design 🍓 Printed onto high quality cotton, we’re so pleased to be able to print Morris designs displaying all the details just as he drew all those years ago 🎨 Timeless designs that when he was printing his designs in Merton Abbey Mill using the Indigo dye technique he’d never have been able to imagine the progress made that we can now digitally print them! 🤍 Strawberry Thief red is now back in stock, such a gorgeous design we adore it ♥️
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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisfabrics #florals #preraphaelite #digitalprint #digitalprinting #strawberrythief
To celebrate Valentine’s Day this week, we’ve been looking through some Pre-Raphaelite love quotes including this one from Dante Gabriel Rossetti ♥️ They sure knew how to write poetry, we’ll share more of their beautiful words this week ✨
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#dantegabrielrossetti #rossetti #preraphaelite #preraphaelites #preraphaelitebrotherhood #poetry #lovepoetry #lovequotes #valentines
Today’s tablescape feels very Valentines pretty 🤍 Beautiful Charlotte Rose is our design from our French archive, so timeless it’s on our table constantly through the year 🌹
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#floraltablecloth #diningtable #mydiningtable #homestyling #floralhomestyling #floralhome #frenchflorals #frenchcountrystyle #printedintheuk #ukindependentbusiness #independantbusiness #valentinesflorals #valentinestable
We’re closed for holiday soon! 🪩 From the 21st Jan- 6th Feb we’ll be taking a little break, so make sure your orders are placed before then, or we will send it when we’re back ✨ since we’re treating ourselves, we thought we’d treat you too with 15% off our website with code; MORRIS - valid until we close 🤍
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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisdesign #artsandcraftsmovement #artsandcrafts #preraphaelite #preraphaelites #preraphaelitebrotherhood
Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄 We hope you’ve all had a wonderful day ✨
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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabrics #preraphaelite #florals #christmastable #tablescape
There’s still time to get your Christmas shopping ticked off! ✨ Free gift wrap on your orders and 10% off everything with code; festive 🎄 Just email us or message us to let us know you’d like us to gift wrap your order ☺️
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabric #preraphaelite #christmasgift #willowbough #floraltable #florals
Loving cutting beautiful fabric stacks this Christmas! 🎄 A fabric stack is an ideal gift for quilters and crafters in your life, they’ll be able to enjoy using them for their next project ✨
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabric #preraphaelite #fabricstash #fabricstack #printedintheuk #shopindependent
Pimpernel Cream is just such a beautiful design 😍 Remember 20% off our website ends Thursday so be quick! Use code, FLORALFRIDAY at checkout 🎄
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #morrisdesign #williammorrisfabric #christmasgifts #preraphaelite #pimpernel
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