Mary Card was a versatile and prolific Australian designer who worked at the beginning of the 20th century. She lived in Melbourne when it was a lively, interesting city. Australia had just become a nation, women had the vote and life was, generally, prosperous.

For Mary, however, times became difficult. She had to sell her school business after becoming deaf at the age of 42. The Ladies Work Association advertised for crocheters to repair valuable items and Mary quickly taught herself to mend the items and this, in turn, led to her designing patterns.

The Ladies Home Journal advertised for patterns and Mary submitted her early designs which were accepted. Her confidence with this success led to her supplying patterns to New Idea and this subsequently led to a six year contract.

Her patterns were popular and easy to follow and she regularly corresponded with her readers. She also published books which the magazine praised as the best . . . on crochet ever published and she was interviewed by the same magazine. During the war years she concentrated on patriotic designs and Barbara showed us some lovely examples which included the Belgium Doyley which was intended to be a Red Cross item to sell at fetes etc to raise money for the war effort in Belgium.

In 1917 she went to New York and her designs appeared in the leading US craft magazine Needlecraft. The Statue of Liberty pattern was an example which Barbara showed us. Barbara also pointed out that these patterns had no instructions - just a photograph which the poor crocheter had to work from!

After a few years Mary moved to England where she continued to design for many years and also sent patterns back to Australia. Barbara said that quite a bit is known about her. She published her work under her own name and also published the names of the people who worked up her designs - a rare and generous gesture at the time. She was an astute business woman and her name was used to endorse many products including Coates Mercer.

Her designs were worked on graph paper and then given to others to work up. Barbara believes her best work was her table cloths, such as the Trefoil cloth and Rose design which she showed us. Mary Card transformed the filet crochet table cloth format by providing giant charts to work from and devising new methods of working circular table cloths by dividing them into nine sections and then joining them together. Orders for her patterns came from around the world and one pattern, the wild roses and pigeon design sold 50,000 copies

In 1940 she returned to Australia in ill health and lived with her sister in Melbourne where she died a short time later.

Barbara showed us many examples of Mary Card's exquisite work and I believe Brigitte has purchased a pattern book for the library. This was an absorbing talk and an inspiring display of beautiful work which everyone enjoyed immensely.