How I Ended Up Celebrating The 1998 100th Birthday Of Donald M. Healey

Several months ago, in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, I decided to go through my story files. During the process, I came across a magazine titled, Healey Marque. It had been sent to me by my brother who, at that time owned an Austin Healey sports car and was a member of the Southern Ontario Austin Healey Car Club.

And so the story of this venture begins…

The year was 1997. My husband and I were then residing on Prince Edward Island. In the fall of that year, I received a phone call request from my brother. He mentioned that 1998 was the 100^th birthday of Donald M. Healey, designer of the Austin Healey sports car. My brother asked if I would consider donating a small to medium size quilt that would be entered as one of the projects of the club. Interested clubs from Canada, United States, United Kingdom and Australia were also competing in this event. The quilt would be auctioned off on Sunday, May 24^th 1998 at the British Wheels & Wings show held at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario. The proceeds of the auction would be donated to the Heritage Museum.

At first, I was taken aback. I have never considered myself a car aficionado and it was quite daunting to be offered a ‘commission’ to design a quilt—especially since I knew nothing about either Austin Healey or the cars he had designed. I was also quite surprised that my brother would put such faith in my quilting ability. I asked my brother when the quilt was to be completed. The reply was February 1998.

I told him that I would think about the suggestion and said I would get back to him in two days.

Well, after giving the offer some thought (like overnight), I decided to accept the challenge.

The first thing I did was call my brother to confirm my acceptance; then, I contacted a quilting friend of mine in Charlottetown who offered to loan me a book titled, Creating Scrapbook Quilts by Ami Simms. As I browsed through the book, I settled on using a transfer method that involved copying photographs onto fabric. This was a fairly new process, one I hadn’t tried. My next step was to visit a photography shop in Charlottetown to ask for some information. After explaining what I had in mind, the owner told me he’d never done anything like that before; however, he did tell me that it would involve using a hot iron to transfer any photos onto fabric. I told him I would supply the cotton fabric and the photos. And so, we agreed.

Following that, I contacted my brother and ask him to send me photographs of the Austin Healey cars; any symbol, design or logo that would signify the occasion; also, the range of car colours.