This was originally posted on November 15 2011.
When I first came across this interesting item at a church sale and had no idea what it was and neither did the church ladies, I carried it around for months in my knitting bag and asked anyone and everyone I thought might have an idea of its use.
Knitters, weavers, crocheters, tatters, spinners, fibre artists etc. were asked. I got many opinions but nothing definite and nothing from a follow-up on the leads.
So I donated it back to the thrift shop. It sat for weeks in the sewing section. It obviously was not a 'hot item'.
Last week I bought it back again. And did another query stroll of staff and customers.
One new suggestion was – for lace making! That had not been considered. I asked Google to search for "someone, please, who knows what the heck kind of tools are used in making lace" and then remembered I could click on Images also. Well, of course, in less than .17 of a second I had six zillion sites to look at. I looked at them all some of them. I did not see anything at all like this. I sent the photo to a lace museum asking for identification. No reply.
Somebody, somewhere has to know what it is. And how to use it. ???????
A few days ago I got this reply from the lace museum:
Karen,
It has taken a while, but we have the answer. It is not a lace making tool. In fact it has nothing to do with the thread arts. See the link below. It has been fun to see what the IOLI Ning group has said about it.
Paula
Well!!!! Many thanks for this to all who took part!!!!! You just never know what you are going to find at church thrift shops. And how marvellous is Net-working.