Morris Apprentice Prints & Sources

 

Morris Housetop Detail

by Roseanne Smith

 

For my new Morris Apprentice reproduction line for Moda I used prints designed by Henry Dearle.

 

Detail of Seaweed

 

 

Roseanne is using the Damask Black colorway for her sashing

8246-16

and the Fennel Green colorway in the blocks

 8246-17

  

Dearle designed many repeating patterns for the Morris Company in his role as Art Director. Here are the sources for two from the Morris Apprentice collection.

 

 

 

"Seaweed" was originally designed for wallpaper, like most of the other prints in this collection of cottons for quiltmakers.

 

 

 

"Seaweed" is the pattern that Britain's Royal Mail chose to represent Dearle for this year's 150th anniversary stamp collection honoring Morris and Company.

 

 

See Dearle's original painting for the pattern, which is in the collection of the Huntington Library by clicking here:

http://hometown-pasadena.com/events/friends-of-the-gamble-house-lecture-series/18752

 

"Tomtit" is a medium-scale print with a graceful diagonal repeat.

 

 

It comes in four colorways.

 

 

 

The print, also originally wallpaper, is named for the small birds. Tom Tit is a variety of the tit bird family, which includes the titmouse and chickadee. Tom Tits are stocky, social birds with small beaks. Here they seem to be perching on giant wild rose bushes.

 

Another version without the birds is called Sweet Briar, illustrated here in the design magazine, the Studio Yearbook for 1907.

 

 

In the left hand block "Tomtit" in Kelmscott Blue #8242-12

 

A snapshot of Roseanne's housetop-style log cabin so far.