Margot Chick – Life Story 25 April 1941 – 31 July 1992
Knitters NSW Guild Founder - 1986
Written in her own hand - circa late 1991 or early 1992 (transcribed by eldest child, daughter no. 1 Joady Chick)
I was born on the Monaro April 1941. My mother was a school teacher and my father owned a grazing property just south of the village of Nimmitabel.
My earliest memories of sheep that marvellous place the shearing shed probably instilled in me my love of wool and the long bleak winters an appreciation of its properties.
My mother taught me at a very early age to both knit and crochet and above all raised me in the belief that one simply did not buy anything one could make oneself.
My mother was always doing something. Today she is called crafty but in the 40’s and 50’s she was thrifty and clever. Beside sewing and kniIng clothes she made our toys, embroidered hessian pictures and cushions made blankets and floor rugs ad infinitum. She sAll does. Bless her.
So, I was raised to make and do and generally it was my pleasure.
My family moved to Canowindra in 1956 after a short stint at Robertson and Bowral.
With no High School in Canowindra I completed High School in Cowra gaining the HC at the age of
16. I wanted to be an archaeologist but with no one including uni guidance officers being able to tell me how one became one I resolved to become a doctor. I was 16 and totally overwhelmed by Sydney Uni being the only medical school. Anyway despite my high pass the Uni refused me entry at that age and I was advised to fill in for a year. I went into nursing.One could not have found a more disciplined, harsher, lowly paid job. I owe as much to those four years in shaping my life as to my mother.
In 1960 I married my childhood sweetheart – the son of my parents’ closest friends. We met when I was 4! By then he was an architectural student.
We moved to Mona Vale where we built the home we were to live in until 1988.
Money was always a problem for young marrieds and I worked at whatever job I could find locally (Nursing was out as by this time my back was like many things, in a mess) until the birth of daughter no 1. In all we had 2 daughters and 2 sons and are now the proud grandparents of 3.5*.
Towards the end of the 70’s I enrolled in a correspondence course in journalism and as a result and with the help of the fates I was asked to submit articles on craft work to the fledgling Womans World magazine. My mother and my own years of making and doing were put to good use and I wrote the majority of the craft articles for that magazine until it went out of existence.
It was the most marvellous learning process and at the end of those years I had gained some idea of how magazines work and about the photography so vital to them. I was very sad when those years came to an end but they were invaluable but I was growing tired of that type of work and never followed up approaches by two other womens magazines to “craft” for them.
Instead I decided to learn the intricacies of embroidery and to that end joined the Embroiders Guild and its local Pittwater Group and was taken under the wing of a well known tutor from Newport Vera Makewell. She tolerated my self taught ways while gently teaching me how to do things properly. I loved about every facet of embroidery and began to test my meele in 1982 when I entered and won the Guild’s Margaret Oppen Competition. I was lucky enough to win again in 1983 and that same year won the inaugural Roma Field Sampler Competition.
In 1984 I was accepted as a candidate to sit for the Proficiency Certificate^ the following year. What a year that was. I chose surface stitchery as the specialty and Celtic art as the theme and despite a 5 week trip to Darwin mid year, to see our first grandchild, passed with a credit.
Consequently the following year I was asked to tutor for the Guild in surface stitchery. I had already been a tutor for its correspondence course for several years.
My association with the Embroiders Guild made me aware of the other guilds, lacemakers, quilters and so on and it had it had often puzzled me as to why knitting, the one skill almost every girl of my vintage and earlier had been taught had no guild of its own. Crochet too had been neglected same for its inclusion in it fine forms with the lacemakers.
Towards the end of the 70’s Craft Australia ran an article on a knieer who also voiced the need for a Knitters Guild. So I sat back and waited for someone to start one. I waited until 1986 when the ‘Liele Ren Hen’ philosophy and the fact that I was growing weary of teaching classes (I had been teaching classes in embroidery, knitting and crochet in both my own home and the Narrabeen Tramshed on and off for some 8 years).
As luck would have it a lady recently retired from her job in Ryde University Fisher Library appeared in one of my crochet classes. After hearing me ramble on about the necessity of a Knitters Guild and my vague intention to start one, she promptly offered to help. Actually, Marea reminds me we had met previously but it was her generous offer to “give me two years” that kicked the Knitters Guild into existence.
* This was written during the pregnancy of Margot’s fourth grandchild, making the time frame between late 1991 and prior to her birth (Bailey Thomson) on 2 March 1992.
^ Part of this Proficiency Certificate was earlier on a variety of surfaces and to this end I wove, crocheted, tricoted and knitted four cushion covers which I embellished with embroidery. I was fascinated by what opportunity knitted fabric and stiches offered the embroider and indeed even suggested a Embroiders Guild Class of experimenters to follow this up. The notion was not met with too much enthusiasm at the time though I hear another tutor has since taken it up.
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| Margot Chick | Margo & Marea | Knitters Guild Group - 1986 |
Memories of my mother Margot Chick
By Joady Chick (eldest of her four children)
My Memories
She was an awesome, motivated, resourceful mum and very generous with her knowledge.
I always remember her with her hands busy, she was a maker and I was brought up with a strong ethic of producing something useful. In parCcular, uClising materials around her and recycling was a use part of her ethos. That was how she was brought up by my teacher grandmother who taught her to knit and crochet at a young age.
I have strong childhood memories of playing underneath my grandparent’s dining table in Canowindra with my mother and grandmother both kniGng or crocheCng and chaGng happily catching up.
In our house at Mona Vale, her cra4 area was adjoining the living room. If mum wasn’t in the kitchen or garden she was there. The sewing machine was permanently out and she made the most of the natural light from the large window overlooking Warriewood.
At night, or rainy afternoons, she craJed in front of the living room B&W TV watching documentaries. The room was full of numerous baskets full of projects on the go. Some with raw wool for spinning, half made knittng, crochet, embroidery, quilted jackets, etc while the cupboards were brimming with collections of fibres for paper making, basketry or anything she was experimenting with at the time.
During the 1970s she was Craft Editor for the new Womans World magazine. I would get to help with the assembly of her creations and many of them were incorporated into our toy or homewares collections.
Our family often went on four-wheel drive camping trips. Never sitting idle, she had very productive knitting sessions in the passenger seat.
She was a stickler for doing things the right way. I remember her talking about the seams of knitted garments being done ‘incorrectly’.
When the Womans World folded she immersed herself in the Embroiders Guild. In the 80s she won a number of embroidery competitions and sat for her Embroidery Proficiency Certificate.
Epilogue
So, understanding mum’s background, I can see how came to found the Guild. She had been brought up on a sheep grazing property run by her father near Nimmitabel and loved spending time in the shearing shed. Her only sibling became a wool classer.
I was living in Darwin, when in 1988 the family moved to Canowindra to refurbish an old shop known as ‘Finns Old Store’. Mum formed a local Knitters Guild group meeting in the ‘Guild Gallery’ secCon of the store while dad sold collectables in the other section.
In the late 80s had become a knitting & crochet judge for the Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane Shows and was totally in her element.
Her sudden death in 1992 at just 51yrs old, while she was visiting me in Victoria totally rocked the family and I greatly appreciate being able to share her story with you.
I look forward passing you the early Knitters Guild paperwork for prosperity and contributing to a History page for the website.
Handwritten notes by Margot Chick
To view large, right click - open/view image.
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