BLACKWELL'S latest exhibition explores the beautiful textiles and designs of Annie Garnett - a creative Arts and Crafts designer and entrepreneur, who became a key figure in the revival of hand spinning and weaving in the Lake District.

The exhibition features treasures from the Annie Garnett archive, held at Kendal's Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, and tells her story through photographs, diary entries, personal objects and the textiles themselves.

Born in 1864, Annie was a talented colourist, designer and keen businesswoman, who established and managed the Spinnery at Bowness, making beautiful textiles using traditional methods. Her work was influenced by the ideas of the writer, art critic and social reformer, John Ruskin. Her colours and designs were inspired by her beautiful garden in Windermere and the landscape and colours of the region.

Unique to The Spinnery, was the production of distinctive fabrics, including rich wools, embroidered linens, and ‘throwans,’ a mixture of flax and silk that changed colour with light and movement. Her designs and patterns won multiple awards and gained national and international commissions. Among her customers were one of Queen Victoria's daughters, and Queen Alexandra.

Annie died in 1942.

Blackwell is also showing its own collection of newly identified and very rare Autochrome images, which allows the Bowness Arts and Crafts House, for the first time to show Annie Garnett’s original garden, in glorious colour.

The Autochrome Lumière is an early colour photography process, patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothers in France. It was the principal colour photography process in use before the advent of subtractive colour film in the mid-1930s.

Running at Blackwell until January 29, the Spinning the Colours of Lakeland: Annie Garnett's Workshop, Textiles and Garden exhibition has been curated in collaboration with Professor David Ingram, who has been carrying out new research on the archive.

After a career which included work at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge, and the Regius Keepership of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, he is now an honorary professor at the universities of Edinburgh and Lancaster. His work is concerned with botany and plant science, but now also encompasses the human relationship with plants and gardens, especially their relationship with art and design. David has a long-standing interest in the Arts and Crafts movement, the ideas of John Ruskin, and the work of Annie Garnett.

Blackwell is one of the finest historic houses from the turn of the last century, and one of the best example of Arts and crafts architecture in Britain.

Designed by M H Baillie Scott, its open daily, 10.30am-5pm (4pm, November-February).