Post Script

Remember my mystery object from a while back?  The one that looked like an enormous pincushion??  Well, I think my Dad has solved the puzzle.

He asked if it might be a tatting pillow.  Now, I'd never heard of a tatting pillow, but it piqued my interest, so I decided to have a little looksee by way of a search engine, ooh, one which rhymes with "frugal".

Nothing.

Another search, this time for tatting cushion, and I came up with this:

http://www.knitting-and.com/blog/tatting/

About halfway down the page is this picture:

  

What do you think?  I reckon my Dad's hit the nail on the head.  Or pin even...

Now all I have to do is learn how to tat!  Doesn't look too hard in the pic above...

Oh - and wish me luck!  Been cleaning ALL DAY and now want to have a bit of a nap before my ladies come around (and they're ALL ladies -  I couldn't interest even one man in learning to crochet - who would have thought it!) at 8pm.  Hopefully they'll be teachable, and we'll all have a lot of fun - and they'll go away tonight being able to make (at the very least) a chain of crochet!

PPS - further investigation leads me to believe it's also known as a lacemaker's pillow.

Comments

[Account Deleted]

I am sorry, but tatting does not use a pillow like some other kind of lace work. Tatting is made with either shuttles or needles. The picture above may be used for some kind of lace work but I am definitely sure that it is not for tatting.
Oh .. just read your pps about the lacemaker's pillow. I guess you found what it is already.

You are welcome to visit my blog, http://tatsaway.blogspot.com/ to find out more about tatting,

Jon

[Hats Outrageous!]

Hey Jon! Thanks! I've been wracking my brains (and those of others) for a while now trying to work out what my object is (further back in my blog I have some pics of it - I'll update this post with a link to that page), and so thank you for your information about tatting!

I'm fairly certain now that it's a lacemaker's pillow, I've done an image search, and my object very closely resembles quite a few of the pictures I've seen.

I'll definitely go have a look at your blog!

[Mark Myers]

True it is a pillow for lacemaking. But the pictures of the paintings you show are of bobbin lacemakers. They use several bobbins each with a thread attached and weave the threads in a pattern. A Google search for bobbin lace will give you TONS of info on it.
The turqoise pillow you show that has the radiatiing threads coming from the center is a certain type of needlelace(involves one needle and thread)......not bobbin lace. It is referred to as teneriffe lace. Sometimes called Sunella or sole lace. You can do a search for images and sites on teneriffe lace to get a broader view of it. But this pillow is typical of that type of needle lace.
Hope this helps.

[Hats Outrageous!]

Wow Mark! My goodness! It's all very new to me, thank you for all that information!