Bird book-marks

This workshop uses birds in William Morris's textile designs as the inspiration for colourful and imaginative book-marks.

“The birds were very beautiful about us; I have been of late so steeped in London that it was a quite fresh pleasure to see the rooks about, who have been very busy in this showery weather.  There was no lack of herons in these upper waters, and in the twilight the stint or summer snipe was crying about us and flitting from under the bank and across the stream: such a clean-made, neat-feathered, light grey little chap he is, with a wild musical little note, like all the moor-haunting birds…”

Morris, The Letters of William Morris to his family and friends

A bookmark reminds the reader where they left off reading; it returns you to your place in a book.  Some of the earliest bookmarks, made from vellum or leather, date from the medieval period.  They were in all sorts of shapes and sizes. 

This resource, devised by artist and illustrator Lesley Saddington, describes how to make your own bookmark.  We don’t know whether William Morris used a bookmark or if he did whether he designed it himself. 

Lesley has been inspired by William Morris’s ‘Bird’ design.  This was one of Morris’s favourite designs, the first of Morris & Co’s textile designs to include the bird motif.

Bookmark pdf