QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, January 24, 2015

More About Honeysuckle in the Best of Morris

Honeysuckle in Indigo Blue
from my Best of Morris line for Moda

The number for Honeysuckle is 8115

Vintage Wallpaper Sample Book page 57: Honeysuckle, pattern #263

Like many Morris & Company patterns, Honeysuckle was designed as wallpaper. The Brooklyn Museum has a sample book from about 1915 that includes this swatch. 


The design has been attributed to William Morris's daughter May Morris.

Mary (May) Morris 1862-1938

May studied at London's South Kensington School of Design in the early 1880s. She is credited with the pattern in 1883.

Honeysuckle by William Morris 1876

Her inspiration may have been this print by her father done a few years earlier.

Root of the Mountains, 1890
A book from Chiswick press bound in the first Honeysuckle.


 May has lightened the design by focusing on one flower.

Read more about May Morris at the Victoria and Albert Museum website:



The first Morris collection we did at Moda in 2008
included this free quilt pattern for "Stepping Stone,"
a nine-patch quilt on point.


Betty made it with her collection of Morris prints
including several from that 2008 line A Morris Garden.


See more of Betty's William Morris quilt at this post:



See more about this new line Best of Morris here at Moda:


2 comments:

  1. I do love the shades in the new line, I can imagine how rich the colors would look in a bed quilt.

    Debbie

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  2. Just wanted to let you know that the charm pack that I was lucky enough to win from your blog arrived safely, and fits nicely with my Wm. Morris collection of fabrics. Thank you again

    ReplyDelete