[quote=JanetM]This sounds like a clothes pin bag from years past. I think if you google clothes pin bag pattern you'll come up with something.
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That was my first thought too, a clothes pin bag that you hung on the line and picked out the wooden pins. I could tell when I had grown each year by how I did not have to stand on my toes to reach the wire when hanging out clothing.
It shouldn't be too hard to make, lots of them were made "way back then".