Enjoy our Counted Cross Stitch Charts Patterns inspired by the works of William Morris.

William Morris 1834 -1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. The Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, Australian and American design movement that flourished between 1880 and 1910. It was instigated by the artist and writer William Morris in the 1860's and was inspired by the writings of John Ruskin. It influenced architecture, domestic design and the decorative arts, using simple forms and a medieval style of decoration. It advocated truth to materials, traditional craftsmanship and economic reform. Morris started a design firm in partnership with artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The firm profoundly influenced the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century.  As an author, illustrator and medievalist, he helped to establish the modern fantasy genre and was a direct influence on postwar authors such as R.R. Tolkien. Morris was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production, and one of the founders of the Society for the protection of Ancient Buildings.  The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings is the foundation of the preservation of historic buildings in the United Kingdom.