Susan brought the children every year on holidays to her parents recently acquired home at Merville (1965[clarification needed]) just outside the town of Sligo, sometimes staying til Christmas.

In 1878, the family moved to a larger house in Bedford Park, Chiswick, where she attended Notting Hill school for a short time.The Yeats family moved to Howth, County Dublin in 1881, where Lily enrolled in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art along with her sister Elizabeth in 1883.

Money was tight, and Lily was offered an opportunity to learn embroidery in the style propounded by Morris, which would become known as art needlework.

[1] By 10 December 1888 Yeats had returned to Morris & Co. and was paid ten shillings for her first week's work for the firm.

They recruited young local women to the enterprise, teaching them painting, drawing, cooking, sewing, and the Irish language in addition to the Guild's core crafts.

[4] Lily Yeats ran the embroidery department, which created textiles for church decoration and domestic use.

William Butler Yeats's wife George (Bertha Georgina), helped Lily run the embroidery arm of the studio which produced clothing and linens.

Lily's health deteriorated again in 1931 (her ailment had finally been correctly diagnosed as a malformed thyroid in 1929[12]), and the decision was made to dissolve the embroidery branch of Cuala.