May Morris Designs: The Essence and Soul of Beautiful Embroidery

Perfect for those interested in May Morris’s style of decorative embroidery, this new Ashmolean publication offers a collection of her designs to discover. It includes an in-depth exploration of her techniques influenced by 19th-century art movements, along with clear instructions to help you apply these methods to your own embroidery and arts & crafts projects.

• A practical guide for readers keen to learn more about May Morris’s approach to creating decorative needlework.
• Contains not only a selection of May’s designs but also a detailed analysis of her working method, from translating a sketched idea into a finished embroidery.
• Also includes embroidery patterns for readers to stitch and a digital element to facilitate with scaling up or down

May Morris (1862–1938) is recognised today as a pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, a leading exponent of decorative needlework and a campaigner for women artists. Despite being one of the foremost practitioners of her generation, it was design that May described as ‘the very soul and essence of beautiful embroidery’. One of the largest collections of May’s designs, from roughly sketched ideas to finished patterns, is held by the Ashmolean Museum. This book showcases a selection of 25 of these designs, which are published here for the first time, positioning May’s output within the artistic developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as equipping embroiderers with the tools to create their own projects based on the work of this remarkable needlewoman.

Lynn Hulse is a textile scholar and practitioner, specialising in embroidered furnishings of the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements. She is the author of several publications on decorative needlework and editor of May Morris: Art & Life (2017). Formerly archivist at the Royal School of Needlework, Lynn now runs Ornamental Embroidery which delivers workshops, lectures and first-hand study sessions of objects in public and private collections, including the Ashmolean Museum.