Mary Card (24 September 1861 – 13 October 1940) was an Australian needlework designer and educator.
Early life Mary Card, born in Castlemaine, Victoria, was the eldest of twelve children born to David Card, a jeweller and watchmaker, and Harriet Card (née Watson-Wooldridge), an actress.
Mary's secondary education at The Ladies College of the Presbyterian Church in Melbourne (now called Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne) was followed by a year at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne.Barbara Jefferis, “Three of a Kind” (1982) 57–97Sally O'Neill, "Mary Card" Australian Dictionary of Biography 7(1979).Barbara Ballantyne, “Mary Card, Australian Crochet Lace Designer”, (2002) 117
Career
In 1903 deafness forced Mary to sell the school she had begun in 1889.
She published several short stories in The Australasian newspaper (later Australasian Post) but was unable to make a living.
She instead began learning needlework, with intentions to become a professional designer and teacher. She gained experience by refurbishing Irish crochet lace when it returned to fashion in the early 1900s. Her first designs were published, anonymously, in the prestigious American Ladies Home Journal.
In 1910, patterns bearing her name were featured in the Melbourne magazine, New Idea, later renamed Everylady's Journal and in a series of books.
Her designs were known for including Australian plants and animals, rather than the traditional English flora and fauna."Mary Card, New Crochet for Australasian Fancyworkers", (1914) 4, 48–62
Her first chart, the Wild Rose & Pigeon Supper cloth, was released in 1917.W.A. Somerset Shum, "Mary Card’s Crochet Book No 4" (1917), 4–5 During this time she also sold crochet hooks, thread and the transfers for some of her designs directly to the public."Everylady’s Journal" (June 6, 1914), 374"Everylady’s Journal" (August 6, 1914), 462
America, England and Australia In 1918 at the age of 57, Mary moved to New York."Everylady’s Journal" (August 1918) 467
Needlecraft magazine issued more than 100 of her designs, including the Statue of Liberty and the American flag.Barbara Ballantyne, "Mary Card: Australian Crochet Lace Designer" (2002) 95–6 Another magazine, Modern Priscilla, showed illustrations of her Grapevine & Silvereye designs"Modern Priscilla" (October 1924) 3"Modern Priscilla" (August 1925) 8, 39 and supplied the charts by mail order. The book of crochet patterns in fine thread she self-published was later re-issued by Needlecraft.
She prepared a book of jackets and jumpers in coarse thread for the Dexter Yarn Company.Mary Card, "Dexter Filet Crochet Slip-ons", Book No 6, (c. 1920)
In the mid-1920s she moved to England, and built a home in rural Berkshire. The English countryside and gardens inspired many of her later designs.Barbara Ballantyne, "Mary Card: Australian Crochet Lace Designer" (2002) 30–1Mary Card, My Two Huts, "Australian Home Beautiful" (1931) 31–2, 37 She began a new series of English Charts, continued with Needlecraft in America until 1935 and issued 29 designs from 1931 to 1939 in Australian Home Beautiful. The later charts carried endorsements for Coats Mercer Crochet® cotton and Old Bleach Linen®.
Some of her previously published work was included in the Semco Crochet Book issued by a needlework supply company in Melbourne in about 1933.Barbara Ballantyne & Bruce Welch, “Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace” (2022b) 12–3 Australian friends who visited Mary in England told her first biographer, Barbara Jefferis, that she also designed for the London firm Weldon and Co who issued the popular Weldon's Practical Needlework and other fashion and needlework publications.Barbara Jefferis, "Three of a Kind" (1982) 5, 165–8 Weldon, along with the other English needlework magazines, did not disclose the names of the designers. However, a few of the Weldon designs with features of her work are in a recent book which brings together all her afternoon tea cloths.Barbara Ballantyne & Bruce Welch, "Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace" (2022) 45–9 She spent most of the last years of her life in England, occasionally returning to Australia. She was with her sister Harriet at Olinda, Victoria when she died on 13 October 1940.A Remarkable Australian, “Australian Home Beautiful” (November 1940) 5
Achievements Mary's designs spanned different mediums. Her spreadsheets, containing more than 400 designs, demonstrate various patterns used in her wider artistic practise.https://www.crochethistory.com/Spreadsheets - a not-for profit website accessed 20. 07.22 She was particularly known for her filet or picture crochet.Barbara Ballantyne & Bruce Welch, “Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace” (2022b) 23–41, 67–70 Mary also served as a teacher of techniques.Mary Card, “Mary Card’s New Book of Filet Crochet Designs”, Homecrafts no 31, (1936) 3–8Barbara Ballantyne & Bruce Welch, “Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace” (2022b) 57–60 has additional techniques
Mary was an active Secretary of her district's Patriotic League during World War I.“Everylady’s Journal” (July 1917) 398 She also helped people with speech and hearing difficulties before she closed her school.Barbara Jefferis, “Three of a Kind” (1982) 127
Patterns An extensive collection of her patterns is available online.https://www.crochethistory.com accessed 20.07.2022 Mary's ten books, more than 30 of her charts, selected magazine articles and as series of spreadsheets are in a high resolution Digital Collection which may be downloaded without charge. Many other designs are in six books on her life and work.Barbara Ballantyne, “Mary Card: Australian Crochet Lace Designer” (2002)Barbara Ballantyne, “The Technique of Filet Crochet with Mary Card’s Designs and Methods” (2004)Barbara Ballantyne, “Mary Card’s Crochet Lace: Bird Designs” (2009a)Barbara Ballantyne, “Mary Card’s Crochet Lace: Flower Designs” (2009b)Barbara Ballantyne, “Mary Card’s Crochet Lace: Later Designs” (2022a)Barbara Ballantyne & Bruce Welch, “Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace” (2022b) 59–60 Further details including illustrations and descriptions of crochet lace techniques accompany some of the rewritten patterns in these books. A few early patterns not available online are in Everylady's Journal and New Idea held by the State Library Victoria. Details, including page numbers are in the spreadsheets. Many of her patterns were published in at least two of the three countries in which she worked.
Recognition of her Contribution to the Social Life of the Nation Mary has been acknowledged in various ways: Obituaries in three Melbourne daily papers, The Age, The Argus and The Herald (Sun), the Australian Home Beautiful magazine and the New York Times. She is listed in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.Sally O’Neill, “Mary Card” (https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/card-mary-5500) Australian Dictionary of Biography 7 (1979) The home she built at Olinda on the outskirts of Melbourne is heritage listed. A street has been named after her in Gungahlin, a suburb of Canberra.https://www.legislation.act.gov.au›current›PDF›2003-331 She was included along with 40 other needlewomen and designers in a comprehensive work on 500 Australian women artists.John McPhee, in Joan Kerr (ed.),”Heritage: The National Women’s Art Book–500 works by 500 Australian Women from Colonial Times to 1955” (1995) 31, 325
References
External links Mary Card's Crochet Book No. 4 (1917), online via Trove, National Library of Australia. "About Mary Card"