Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace

Photo of Mary Cards Legacy of Crochet Lace Book Cover

This book provides an up-to-date overview of the life and work of Mary Card, an internationally renowned designer of crochet lace in the early 1900s.

It also brings together her best work, her filet crochet tablecloths which were an important part of the social occasion of ‘afternoon tea’ where friends were entertained in style at home with fine linen, the best china and delicious food.

Many were ‘big picture’ designs with flowing lines and living creatures, particularly birds. These works of art were enhanced by a variety of different lacet backgrounds (negative spaces).

The 60 filet crochet cloths from other designers of that time which are shown and discussed were in a stiff traditional format and few approached Mary’s ‘big picture’ style. The only exceptions were two remarkable cloths from a little-known Australian designer, Mrs A. Roberts who was strongly influenced by Mary’s work.

Many of these cloths were delightful but rarely if ever rivalled Mary’s.

Towards the end of her life in England, Mary was said to have worked anonymously for Weldon, a prominent publisher of needlework and fashion magazines and books. A selection of designs from their magazines are among the examples from other mostly unknown designers shown and discussed.

This book also summarises Mary’s more than 400 designs which are described in the Spreadsheet section. They provide a way of finding her patterns, most of which are available at this site, either as digitised books, charts, magazine articles or my own six books on Mary’s life and work.

Several other Mary Card cloths are displayed in colour on the Home Page and the Read more sections of Mary Card: Australian Crochet Lace Designer & Mary Card’s Crochet Lace: Flower Designs books.

Title: Mary Card’s Legacy of Crochet Lace
Price: $25

Number of Pages: 88

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