This is one that Miss Marple (a knitter herself, of course) would appreciate.

When packing for our trip to Reno, I selected a few knitting projects to take (as usual!), including my Brioche Leg-Warmers — especially appropriate for travel as it is essentially ribbing knitted round and round rather mindlessly.  And it is compact:  2 balls of sock yarn and 3 short FlexiFlips needles (basically a double pointed needle/circular needle hybrid).  

I put this project in my carry-on bag, but worked on another project on the plane instead.   In fact, I did not pull it out until our second day.  And when I did, I found that one of the needles was missing (if it can be correct to say one has found something missing…but I digress…).  I emptied the small draw-string bag.  No 3rd needle.  I clawed through my carry-on bag and my other knitting projects.  Nope.

I dug through the couch cushions and shone a light under the couch (none of which is really polite when one is a guest, I admit).  Nope.  I checked my bags again.  Nope.

Had it fallen out of my carry-on bag on the plane?  I recalled giving our seat area a quick glance as we exited, feeling certain that I had gathered up everything I had taken out.  But one might not notice a needle on the floor unless one was looking for it.  Maybe it had popped out of the bag and had just lain there helpless while I squooshed and squeezed myself out of the row of seats!

I tentatively suggested to George that we call the airlines, but he doubted they would have kept it even if they had seen it.  And, of course, I couldn’t be sure that it had fallen there anyhow.  Maybe it had fallen out at the airport gate where we had waited for our flight.  Maybe it fell out at home before we left, I thought.  So, I set the Leg-Warmers aside and worked on my other projects for the duration of our trip.

Upon returning home, I scurried around the house checking all the likely spots:  my various knitting roosts, the table where I keep projects, the floor by my bed.  I probed between seat cushions and shone lights under chairs.  I went all “detective” and tried to remember when I had last seen The Needle — when had I last knit on the Leg-Warmers?  Maybe at Starbucks?  Had The Needle leapt out of my bag then?  (By now The Needle had taken on the characteristics of a grasshopper as well as proper noun status)

I was beginning to think The Needle was gone for good.  Grimly, I wrote “order needles” on my to-do list for the next day.  (These needles are not cheap and I would have to buy the set of 3) And then I emptied out the draw-string bag one last time.  And as I set down the ball of multi-colored yarn, I must have squeezed it just a tad because I felt something pointy….

Do you see it?  Here, let me give it another squeeze…

Yup, there it is!  And there it was all the time buried in the ball of yarn— like the proverbial needle in a haystack. Ha!