What Is It? January 2021

   We had quite a few guesses for our January What Is It. Briefly as Serge Silver of Golden said, “This is a sterling silver Victorian-era chatelaine with seven implements.” Suzanne Capra of Wheat Ridge adds, “Victorian women wore this attached to a belt and it contained sewing items or any other thing the lady chose to wear.” Jean Helzer of Arvada pointed out that “Ladies of yore had it attached to their belt for easy access to their scissors, needles, smelling salts, pen & paper, etc.” Carol Vilkaitis of Loveland, Colorado said that with a chatelaine, there’s “No need to carry a purse!” Terry Cook of Fort Morgan tells us that you can find miniature versions of chatelaines for Queen Anne dolls, 18th century.” Carolyn Kundel of Roland, Iowa reminisced with us about her childhood, “I’m 86. When we were young children, our town had a seamstress who made clothes for others (right after the Depression). She took our measurements and sewed clothes with no patterns. Our town seamstress was also my 4-H leader who taught me to sew and she was our Sunday school teacher as well.”    Cheryl Miller of Ft. Collins; Dorothy Unruh of Lakewood; Starla Metayer of Roggen; Jerome McLaren of Conifer; Bill Evans of Elizabeth; Vicky Kellen of Castle Pines and Jacque Rutledge of Northglenn also correctly identified the What Is It as a chatelaine. Thank you all so much for your contribution to our contest!

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