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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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Replacing all normal eggs with chocolate ones for the foreseeable future 🐣 Brother Rabbit Green on the table always looks so beautiful, we just love this new colour way in this gorgeous William Morris design ✨
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#williammorris #wmorris #eastertable #floraltable #eastertablescape
Gorgeous flowers this weekend 🤍 We can’t get over the beautiful tulips 🌷 Brother Rabbit blue on the table, do you prefer it in the blue, red or green? 🌿
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#williammorris #wmorris #preraphaelites #flowerpowerfabric #flowers
A moment for the greens 🌿 We know sometimes it’s hard imagining different designs together for projects whether you’re quilting with tonal colours or mix matching curtains and cushions, the things you can do with our William Morris fabrics are endless, so seeing them together you can see how beautifully they pair together ✨ We’ll post the blues next so you can see them together too! 🤍 Message us if you’d like a sample of anything, we send them free in the UK 📮
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#williammorris #williammorrisdesign #williammorrisfabrics #quiltingfabric #ukfabric
Back in stock alert! ✨ All sizes of our gorgeous William Morris blue Strawberry Thief tablecloths & napkins 🌿 Sometimes the easiest napkin folds are the most effective (we have no bias towards this being our favourite just because it contains a chocolate egg… promise…) 🐰 
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#williammorris #wmorris #strawberrythief #preraphaelites #eastertablescape
Some new fabric bundles are now uploaded on our Etsy! ✨ We’ll post the link to our stories to them but some, like in the picture are almost fat quarters, perfect for quilting and crafting, and some are proper scrap bundles full of various sizes and designs, wonderful for crafting- we always wonder what everyone will create from them 🪡 They get rave reviews on our Etsy with crafters and quilters loving them for smaller projects 🥰
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#williammorrisfabric #williammorris #quiltingfabric #craftingfabric #sewingfabric
We’re so ready to see everyone’s beautiful Easter tablescapes! 🐣 our top necessities for an Easter table are multiple eggs and gorgeous flowers- the best combo! This William Morris Brother Rabbit tablecloth is the perfect addition to Easter with all those rabbits all over it! 🐰
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#williammorris #wmorris #preraphaelites #easter #eastertablescape
William Morris designs bring nature indoors with all the florals, birds and botanicals, so we brought some of our garden inside with some beautiful snowdrops on the table - anyone else excited about the garden waking up for spring? 🌱☀️
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#gardenflorals #gardensofengland #williammorris #wmorris #preraphaelites
Happy Pancake Day! 🥞 With the sun finally shining here in Yorkshire we had to bring some of it inside with some flowers from the garden- gorgeous snowdrops down the table ☀️ This tablecloth is the beautiful William Morris Trellis, our licensed William Morris design and always a favourite of ours 🫶🏻 Is anyone else starting on the Easter eggs in February? It’s not just us right… 😉
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#williammorris #gardenflowers #snowdropseason #burleighpottery #pancakeday
We thought we’d do a little spotlight onto all our designs the next few weeks to give more story behind them as they’re all so historic being licensed William Morris designs ✨ First designed in 1874, this is Lily, a beautiful design that incorporates the willow background with lilies and wild flowers 🫶🏻 The design must have been well loved by Morris himself- it was the wallpaper he used to decorate his bedroom at the gorgeous @kelmscottmanor - his home in Lechlade 🤍 Have you ever seen Morris’ Lily design? It’s one of our favourites 🤍
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#williammorris #wmorris #lily #floraltable #britishdesign