I bought a vyshyvanka for my granddaughter Maddy, who’ll turn eight at Christmas, and it came today with the surprise of a beaded bracelet and beaded head covering with ribbons to tie it on with, because Nataliya is wonderful like that.

And there was this. Made of wood. It could be a small sunflower coaster, sure, and definitely a symbol for a country that grows most of the sunflower oil in the world, but all those little holes are begging for laceweight or beading thread or something and to be used as a tool.

What kind and how, though, I am guessing at because I have no idea.

For that matter you could loop yarn through one of the petals and wear it as a large necklace of about the size of all those VW emblems that were being stolen off cars right and left in the ’80’s. (I’d forgotten about the Beastie Boys and VW offering a free emblem to anyone who asked in order to save their customers’ cars and their future sales figures.)

No but seriously, if anyone’s seen one of these before, what is this? I feel like I should know.