5th July 2019
We thought you might want to take a closer look at our Summer William Morris designs. The weather here in the North of England is finally heating up so it felt right we wrote this blog now! We’ve got crossed fingers that the sun will stick around for the long haul.
Perfect all year round of course, these are the one’s we’re gravitating towards during the Summer months.
It’s the colourings within Trellis that not only make it bright for summer but also allow it to suit every outfit you wear it with. The blue pops against denim and the pink and red flowers. The softer cream, grey and green are beautifully neutral. Trellis was the first wallpaper Morris designed; can you believe he produced something so lovely first time round! Trellis remains one of our all time favourites. The birds within the design, as with many other patterns with naturalistic elements, were designed by his good friend and colleague, Philip Webb.
You can almost feel the movement within this design. Inside on the kitchen table, it feels like a breath of Summer air through the open window.
We have Willow Bough in both green and blue. May Morris, William’s daughter, used Willow Bough to decorate her bedroom – it was then adapted for fabric in 1895 when it was block printed at Merton Abbey.
May wrote about the Willow Bough design, “We were walking one day by our little stream that runs into the Thames and my father pointed out the detail and soon after the paper was done.”
Lily is a design we can see lots of people have taken huge inspiration from in fashion this season. There’s lots of ‘Morrisesque’ designs on the market right now. The willow background features lilies and wildflowers within it, the flowers providing pops of colours throughout the design.
This was the design that Morris himself chose to wallpaper his bedroom at Kelmscott Manor with. Out of all his designs, he chose this one so it must have been a personal favourite. It’s easy to see why!
Sweet Briar was designed in 1912 as a wallpaper and only soon afterwards was adapted for fabric. The background is a soft cream with climbing and winding rose stems in green and soft brown. The sweet briar roses themselves are prominent within the design. The design and it’s name have always reminded us of the traditional fairytale books; we could imagine the stems and roses wrapping round some old beautiful font!
We don’t really need to tell you why Merton is in our summer choices, you can see from the photo that it’s summer in a design! Stunning blue and white, we also have this design in a green and cream colour way. This design was first produced in 1888. Morris created his company Morris & Co. and moved their premises to Merton Abbey in Surrey in 1881. This was the first design that was printed on rotary screens.
Take a look through our collection and let us know on social media what your favourite Morris summer design is!
Posted in William Morris by Laura