Vintage Doily Stretcher…Update to demonstrate results

This is a doily stretcher….probably not something found in most modern-day laundry rooms!
It’s 20” X 29”. It’s a flat board—probably compressed paper or some other fiber. It’s very smooth on both sides and it’s finish repels dampness. even tho it’s very “holey”.
There are hundreds of tiny holes meant to hold little pegs of wood, plastic or aluminum.
One side has concentric circles and concentric ovals, each in graduated sizes. The 4 corners have right angles.
The other side has concentric stars of graduated sizes, rectangles, and straight lines.
All lines on both sides have holes spaced about every half inch along them.

The object of the thing is to be able to take a washed and starched (or unstarched) still damp doily and “shape” or “square” it up by pinning it along the guide lines.
When the doily is dry, remove the pins and you have a perfectly shaped doily.
(by the way…NEVER put doilies in the clothes dryer…they will come out shrunken and wadded up. If you should sin in that particular way, you must re-wet the doily and properly stretch and shape it….then vow never to do that again.)

I’ve used this doily stretcher many times….I didn’t need any instructions because, as a child, I had watched my Granny use her’s every time she finished crocheting a doily or after she washed doilies.

I never knew what became of Granny’s doily stretcher but I wanted one. I actively looked for years for one, then, finally came across one in a Tennessee antique store about 20 years ago.

As I paid for it ($20, I think), I was blabbing about it to the teen or 20-something young man clerk. He told me he had seen it in the store but thought it was some kind of old game board with it’s pieces missing. :^)
So he learned something new and I found something old! I was happy!

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If anyone is interested, I washed this doilie, saturated it with undiluted liquid starch, squeezed out the excess starch, positioned it along lines on the board, propped up ruffles with styrofoam peanuts, gave the ruffle part a spray of stiffener for extra stiffness, then let it air dry thoroughly.

I just got around to taking it off the stretcher and putting it back in it’s usual place under a lamp in my LR. I’m happy with the result. :^)