Posted 10 years ago
tinacek
(1 item)
This tool was passed on to me many years ago in my Great Grandmother's sewing box. I've kept it but have no idea what it is. She also owned an old Singer sewing machine that was gifted to her by her husband on her wedding day (~90-100 years ago), so it might have something to do with that. Does anyone have any idea what it is? I'm just curious. The wheel rotates on itself and also on the axis. The squares on the cutting mat in the photo are 1 cm.
Thanks.
Christine.
This may be an early rotary cutter, as they have been in use long before Olfa made them!
Any evidence of the wheel being sharpened?
Thanks for your thoughts racer4four. I had considered a rotary cutter, but it seems to me that the fact it rotates around on the axis would be terribly annoying....you'd want to change directions without lifting the tool and move your hand around but it wouldn't move the position of the blade. Also, the wheel is quite small and I would think it really hard to sharpen. There doesn't seem (to my eyes) any evidence of sharpening and it's certainly too blunt at the moment to cut fabric (I've tried). Were they really around before the 70s? I've tried to Google and haven't found any references to them prior to then.
Good points!
Maybe then something like a pattern copier?
I am wondering if it is an early version of a tracing wheel for tracing embroidery transfers. The metal top would be the handle and the small wheel that rotates around would be to press on the top design to cause the carbon paper underneath to transfer the design on to the fabric. Embroidery of all sorts was very popular at the time this tool was made, for example, table cloths, napkins, pillow cases and so on.
Different like everyone else I think it is for either cutting or marking patterns.