Happy Valentine’s Day

14th February 2017

Happy Valentines Day!

Whilst it’s easy to be caught up in the flowers and chocolates that today surround the holiday, looking into the legend of St Valentine and the origins of February 14th is really interesting. Valentine’s Day has become the second most popular card sending holiday right after Christmas, with 150 million cards being given every year.

The history of the day, along with the story of St Valentine himself is mysterious with many stories being fabricated through the years. Valentines Day contains vestiges of both ancient Roman and Christian traditions- but what are these, who was St Valentine and why do we still celebrate this day with such enthusiasm so many years later?

There are two main theories as to why Valentine’s Day lands on the 14th February- one is simply that it commemorates the day of the Patron Saint’s death or burial (around the year 270 A.D.) Other theorists claim that it was the Christian Church who long ago decided to celebrate with a feast in mid-February to Christianise Lupercalia- a Pagan celebration. Lupercalia was a fertility festival, dedicated to the Roman God of agriculture, Faunus- as well as Romulus and Remus, the Roman founders.

Lupercalia celebration was deemed ‘un-Christian’ by the end of the 5th Century as Pope Gelasius decided February 14th was to be St. Valentine’s Day. However at this time, it wasn’t associated with love- in France and England it was thought that February 14th was the beginning of birds’ mating season; perhaps today this is the association with all the birds we see on cards.

Of course, cards like we send today weren’t sent during this period, in fact, the oldest known Valentine we know is a poem, written in 1415 by the Duke of Orleans, Charles, who wrote it to his wife during his imprisonment in the Tower of London after he was captured during the Battle of Agincourt. During the 25 years he spent in the prison, he wrote 60 love poems to the Duchess- she died before she received this Valentine; the manuscripts are now in the British Library.

Photo Credit: BBC

Since then, it developed to hand written notes and small tokens of affection that were exchanged. Hand made cards began to be exchanged in America in the early 1700s. During the 1840s, it was Esther A. Howland who began to sell the very first mass produced Valentine’s Day cards- one example can be seen below, but make sure to take a look at others as they’re really beautiful crafts! According to many websites, Esther has been deemed the ‘Mother of the Valentine,’ creating cards by using colourful ‘scrap’ pictures, ribbon, lace and other craft pieces.

It remains unknown who St. Valentine specifically was, and which the Pope intended to honour; according to the ‘Catholic Encyclopaedia,’ there were at least three Saints a the time who went by that name. One, a Bishop in Terni, another a Priest in Rome, and the third we largely know nothing about, except that he died in Africa. In a spooky coincidence, all three St. Valentine’s were martyred on February 14th.

It’s interesting that the tradition remains all these years later, when, if you research the day, we largely don’t know why it began or for who we are celebrating. Though Valentine’s Day today has become a huge (and profitable) holiday, perhaps we shouldn’t grumble and instead be happy at any celebration of love.

Cut this gorgeous fabric stack today- can anyone name these iconic William Morris designs? ✨
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#williammorris #wmorris #quiltfabric #curtainfabric #floralfabric

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Our fabric patchwork bundles, fabric bundles and remnants have been restocked on our website now! 🤎 With only a few available, hurry to get the designs you want, the bundles are great for smaller sewing and quilting bundles, what will you create? 🪡🧵
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#fabricscraps #fabricstash #williammorris #fabricseller #fabriclove

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Is there anything better than fresh flowers? 🌻 Bringing sunshine and nature indoors with Merton blue on the table today 🤍
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#williammorris #wmorris #floraltable #flowerstagram #blueandwhite

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In 1864, William Morris designed gorgeous Trellis- inspired by the rose trellis in the gardens of @redhousent 🌹 We’ve got a limited collection of small and large cotton tote bags that we’ve just put live on the website- the perfect accompaniment to your next day out, it’s a design that’s proved itself to be timeless, plus it’ll go with every outfit, what’s not to love! 🤍 If everyone loves our cotton totes, we could bring them out in more designs, which design would you like to see a tote in? 🌟
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#inspiredbynature_ #williammorris #trellis #garden #floraltotebag

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Perfect in every colour; it’s Brother Rabbit ✨ Our licensed William Morris Forest Green colour way of Brother Rabbit now comes in tea towel form to add some timeless floral magic to your kitchen, did you know the birds and rabbits within the design were drawn by Philip Webb? 🐦‍⬛
Our tea towels are all printed and manufactured in the UK, and are £10.99 each 🌟
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #floral #philipwebb #floralprint

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Gorgeous Mallow Forest Green in the sunshine this week ☀️ Our heavyweight fabric is so versatile with so many crafts, what will you make? 🧵
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabric #greenfloral #craftingfabrics

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Wrap an order with us for a custom bundle of some wedding table linens 🌿 These Mallow Forest Green napkins and a custom table runner are now on their way to a customer to adorn their wedding tables, we’re so pleased to be involved in the tables of a few weddings this year! 🤍 If you are looking for gorgeous timeless William Morris florals for your tables, get in touch we’d love to discuss it with you ✨
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#williammorris #weddingtablescape #weddingtables #weddinglinens #weddingtablescape

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It’s coming home! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 To celebrate, take 15% off our website all weekend with code: HOME at checkout ⚽️ Hurry it ends Tuesday 🌿
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#williammorris #england #itscominghome⚽️ #britishbusiness #floralprint

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The latest project, a little quilted jacket! ✨ Our William Morris Merton Blue cotton fabric is looking gorgeous, we’ll show you it when it’s finished ☺️ Remember if you’re quilting, our cotton fabric is perfect for the projects and we have lots of complimenting designs and colour ways within our range! 🪡
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#merton #quiltedjacket #quiltingfabric #quiltingfabrics #fabricstack

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We’re often asked what the different weights of our fabrics are and what projects they’d be good for. These are our three different types of fabrics in our Brother Rabbit red colourway - cotton on the right, heavyweight in the middle and pvc on the left ✨ As you can see on the second photo, and as the name suggests, our heavyweight fabric has a thicker, heavier weave which makes it good for projects such as curtains and light upholstery 🪡 Our cotton fabric is perfect for quilting and projects such as dress making but honestly the amount of crafts that can be made out of them both are endless! 🫶🏻 Our pvc fabric is great to put straight on the table as it won’t fray so doesn’t need a hem and is easy to maintain as it’s wipe clean! All our fabrics are sold by the half metre and if you’d like a sample of any of our fabrics in any weight just let us know and we’ll get a free sample sent to you! 💌
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#williammorris #cottonfabric #quiltingfabric #curtainfabric #ukfabric

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Our William Morris range is a gorgeous mix of colours and florals, which is your favourite? In some designs such as Strawberry Thief, Brother Rabbit, Willow Bough and Mallow we have different colour ways that we digitally print in the UK so check our website for the full range! 🫶🏻
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#williammorris #preraphaelite #quiltingfabric #fatquarters #britishbusiness

Perhaps the most famous Morris design, Strawberry Thief was registered in 1883, inspired by Morris watching the thrushes stealing strawberries from under his fruit nets at the beautiful @kelmscottmanor 🍓 It was printed using the indigo dye technique, which was labour intensive and first attempted in 1875 but not perfected for 8 years 🎨 We also print Strawberry Thief in a beautiful red 🫶🏻
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#strawberrythief #historicdesigns #britishdesign #kelmscottmanor

Gorgeous Golden Lily, designed in 1897, it’s been a timelessly popular design ever since but did you know that it really increased in popularity in the 1960s when the Beatles George Harrison wore a Golden Lily shirt? ✨
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#goldenlily #wmorris #georgeharrison #englishsummer #englishdesign

Daisy is a special one to many as it was the second ever design Morris created, in 1864, made up of repeating drawn Meadow Daisies 🌼
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#morrisandco #preraphaelite #preraphaelites #daisy #daisydesign

We print Willow Bough in this beautiful blue and also in green 🌿 First designed in 1887, it was first produced as a wallpaper design which May Morris, Williams daughter, used to decorate her bedroom before being adapted for fabric in 1895 when it was block printed in Merton Abbey 🌿
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#maymorris #mertonabbey #mertonabbeymills #willowbough

Trellis is a special design as it was the first wallpaper he designed for his company, Morris & Co. In 1864 🌿 It was inspired by the rose trellis in the garden of his stunning home @redhousent that he co designed with his friend and architect, Philip Webb
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#philipwebb #redhouse #trellis #rosetrellis

We print Mallow in a wine colourway and this beautiful forest green colour ✨ It was first printed in 1879 and used to hang in the wonderful Arts & Crafts home, @standennt in the Croxley bedroom 🫶🏻
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#a

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you’ve got to make everything an event, including breakfast! 🥐
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On the table;
Willow Bough blue placemats- £38.99
Willow Bough blue napkins- £20.99 ✨
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #willowbough #preraphaelites #floralhome

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Have you seen our forest green colourways of Mallow and Brother Rabbit? 🌿 We brought them out last year and were so happy that they’re ever so popular with everyone 💚 This week we’ve also got a 10% discount running on our website with code: floralsummer 🌅
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#williammorris #williammorrisfabric #wmorris #williammorrisdesign #preraphaelite

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Did you know all our fabrics are printed and all our products manufactured in the UK? 🤍 It’s important to us that our William Morris fabrics are all high quality and the printed colours all beautiful to ensure all his designs live on timelessly to a high standard 🇬🇧
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Products featured; our Daisy William Morris tea towel - £10.99 ✨
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#williammorris #wmorris #morris #floralteatowel #floralhome

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A moment for the greens! 💚 Can you name all these beautiful green William Morris designs? 🌿 All digitally printed here in the UK 🇬🇧 The good thing seeing them all together is you can see which work together for a sewing project or quilt, or layered together for your next tablescape! 🫧
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabric #preraphaelites #floralfabrics

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Did you know we do bundles of our fabric offcuts? 🌿 Perfect for sewer and quilters, they’re various sizes and designs and available on our Etsy and website - this is our latest “almost fat quarter” bundle that all are almost 50cm pieces, you could even make double sided cushions or anything! What would you create? 🪡🧵 (message us if you’d like a link to our bundles!🫧)
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#williammorris #fatquarters #fatquarterbundle #preraphaelite #quiltingcotton

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With this hot weather upon us, if you’re like us and using it to get all your washing out and dry, we thought we’d tell you our washing guidelines! 🫧 We’d recommend folding your fabric face to face when in the wash (so pattern side to pattern side!) to protect the print and then wash at 30 degrees, hang on the line to dry! 🧺 All our fabrics are digitally printed in the UK and products manufactured in the UK 🇬🇧
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#williammorris #goldenlily #flowerscape #wmorris #preraphaelite

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All our wonderful William Morris fabrics are digitally printed here in the UK, creating high quality print in incredible colour ways, if you’re quilting and crafting from our cotton and heavyweight cotton fabrics, we thought it’d be handy to have all the pattern repeats in an easy to save post ☺️
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#williammorris #craftingfabric #quiltingfabric #floralfabrics #patternfabric

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Merton in blue is one of the most beautiful William Morris designs, a timeless blue and white, it was first designed in 1888!
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#williammorris #wmorris #morrisdesign #merton #preraphaelite

If you’d like a sample of Merton, just send us a message and we’ll get one sorted out for you!
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#williammorris #floralfabric #blueandwhite #blueandwhitefabric #tablescape

Have you seen Merton before? It’s so underrated as a Morris design we think! It was actually the first design that he printed on rotary screens under the name “Morris & Co.” After their rebrand from “Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.’” 🌿 We’re just appreciating it during peony season!
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#peony #peonyseason #morris #morrisandco #preraphaelites

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Taking a closer look at beautiful Lily design, a timeless design Morris designed in 1874, if you’d like a sample of Lily, just let us know! 💌
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The table details;
Lily napkins- £16.99 for 4
Lily tablecloths- starting from £29.99 depending on size
Also mentioned;
Lily cotton by the half metre- £9.25
Lily heavyweight cotton by the half metre- £10.25
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#williammorris #wmorris #preraphaelites #lily #quiltingcotton

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