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"In 1872 Lady Victoria Welby and Anastasia Dolby founded a philanthropic organization, first called the School of Art Needlework (later the Royal School of Needlework, RSN), with a twofold purpose: to revive fine emboirdery and provide employment for educated gentlewomen. Now women could be busily employed embroidering elegant designs by artists such as [William] Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Walter and Thomas Crane, G.F. Bodley, and Selwyn Image. Its purpose did not include teaching design but carrying out the designs of these and other atists. Art needlework enthusiasts declared that women were increasingly idle because the machine was taking over women's work and Berlin wool work was taking over aesthetic taste. Needleworkers, 'nausated with German patterns of Berlin wool work, had fallen back, like Queen Anne, to knitting and crochet,' according [to] Marian Alford."
excerpt from Victorian Needlwork by Kathryn Ledbetter, pg. 22
