As the initiator and artistic director of the Scottish firm, Edinburgh Weavers, Alastair Morton was arguably the most influential textile designer in twentieth century Britain. Hand in hand with the three towering figures of abstract art, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo, Alastair Morton struggled to uphold abstract design in the face of the antagonism from the surrealist and realist camps. For many years Edinburgh Weavers was the only company in Britain to produce textiles designed by the leading Avant Garde artists of the day.

Aliatair Morton's pure sense of composition was an inspiration to Ben Nicholson, who wrote: "The designs I made for Edinburgh Weavers were entirely brought about by him (Alastair Morton) and I thought, and said that I felt, they should have been (if he wished it) attributed half to him and half to me". When in 1936, Ben Nicholson published his Circle, the international survey of Constructivist Art, it was Alastair Morton who supported him in a series of lectures, speeches and articles before and during the Second World War.

In 1937, he launched their range of Constructivist Fabrics, an experiment in artist-designed textiles by Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Eileen Holding, Winifred Dacre and others. It was Morton's aim that: For the particular type of trade being done by Edinburgh Weavers, it was necessary that a number of new designs should be introduced each year and that many should be ahead of public taste.

Ten years later, Nicholas Pevsner wrote in his Industrial Art in England: "Morton steered the Edinburgh Weavers through their first difficult years, and now they are...the most adventurous firm in the country."