Quilt heritage: Celebrate the Designs of William Morris

We’re so excited to bring you our new supplement, delving into the heritage of one of Britain’s best-loved artists! William Morris: Celebrating the designs of the Arts & Crafts icon is available with issue 32 of Today’s Quilter magazine (get the digital issue in our apps for Apple Newsstand and Google Play).

Inside your exclusive supplement

Here on the Today’s Quilter team we’ve been planning this for months. We’ve toured his houses, spoken to experts from the Morris & Co. archive and National Trust, gone behind the scenes of his new fabric collection and even commissioned an exclusive quilt project filled with his iconic prints.

“I have so often looked at fabric and uttered the phrase, “Oh it’s beautiful – very William Morris!” confesses our Commissioning Editor Jenny Fox-Proverbs in her welcome page. Jen has lived by the designer’s best-known saying: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,” and we’re pleased to reveal Sally Ablett’s classic quilt project (pictured below and using the Kelmscott fabric collection) ticks both of those boxes.

Join us on a William Morris virtual tour

We’ve filled all 64 pages of our exclusive supplement with features to feed your curiosity about the man whose designs have inspired homes, design work and artists for over a century. Features Editor Jane Rae has created a ‘virtual tour’ of historic Morris homes and locations, and traced the landmark dates in his life and career throughout the 19th Century.

We couldn’t resist finding out more about the Style Library‘s role as custodian of the Morris & Co. archive, and we were lucky enough to get our hands on the latest Kelmscott collection of fabrics, inspired by his Cotswold retreat and featuring iconic designs such as the Strawberry Thief, Bachelors Button and Lily Leaf. The range has been created by FreeSpirit fabrics and The Original Morris & Co.). Sally Ablett’s Strawberry Thief project (long-arm quilted by Mary-Jane Hutchinson) is the perfect way to sew William Morris designs into an heirloom quilt to treasure. You’ll find step-by-step instruction in the supplement.

Oh happy days! Now we can sew quilts with William Morris prints thanks to the new Kelmscott fabric collection.

Zoe Williams

Zoe launched Gathered.how as editor in 2019. A keen crafter, quilter and sewist, she has worked with the UK’s best-selling craft magazines – from Today’s Quilter to Love Patchwork & Quilting, Simply Sewing and The World of Cross Stitching. With over a decade of craft publishing experience under her belt, she loves crafting with her kids and curling up on the sofa with a spot of hand patchwork. Zoe has previously written for radiotimes.com, Simply Knitting and The World of Cross Stitching and was previously Deputy Editor of Papercraft inspirations magazine. She has guest-lectured at Bath Spa University. She’s a keen quilter with 5 projects in progress at any one time and another 12 or so planned. Specialist skills include hand modelling for YouTube craft tutorials and fabric foraging (she has an inbuilt radar for local haberdasheries and community craft gatherings).

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