Fanny Shorter

Fanny Shorter worked as an illustrator in London before turning to fabric, and storytelling still sits at the heart of every design. She grew up in Winchester, in the Georgian house on College Street that had been Jane Austen's final home, surrounded by her mother's pattern, colour and handmade furnishings - the start of a lifelong love of illustration and decoration.

Her work is rooted in historic British craftsmanship. All but two of her fabrics are screen printed on European linen in south London, and her wallpapers are surface and rotary printed in Leicestershire. Most fabrics are held in stock.

Her newest design, Circe's Garden, captures the romance and whimsy of the British garden - statues, ferns and mythical creatures beneath a giant gunnera - inspired by Lady Edith Londonderry's gardens at Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland.