A few weeks ago I lost a sterling silver thimble which I had bought when I first started to quilt forty years ago.  I had used it on every quilting project I had ever created during my First Act in Fiber Arts, and more recently on every quilting project created during my Second Act in Fiber Arts.

I was basting hexagons one afternoon and got up to take a short break.  I thought I threw the thimble in my little Tupperware sewing box when I walked away for a few minutes.

Upon returning my thimble was nowhere to be found.  I looked for it all over the living room.  I even turned my This End Up couch on end and tore off the pillows.  My husband even got in the act and we looked everywhere.

I felt as if I had lost a valuable part of my history, and I will admit that there was a lot of crying and sobbing going on over this incident.  It didn’t make sense, yet a few weeks after it happened, with the thimble not having materialized, I was getting ready to blog about my loss.

Then a couple days ago, while tidying up the living room in preparation for a visit from my stepdaughter and her son, I picked up a nearly empty package of tissues.

Something was peaking out of the lower edge of that package of tissues. Can you see it? When I picked up the package I didn’t see it, but I felt it.

A very bad word sprang loudly from my lips as I held the package in my hand. It was a strange reaction, I will admit. It was actually an expression of extreme joy and disbelief.  My husband was nearby and wanted to know what was wrong.  I said, “You’ll never believe what I found.”  He asked, “Your credit card?” (That’s another story.) I said, “No, even better! MY THIMBLE.”

I quickly figured out what had happened. When I came back to my stitching that day, and had been unable to find my thimble, I started to toss things out of my sewing kit in search of it.  The tissue package got tossed into a container on the sewing table with spools of thread and other miscellaneous items, and there it remained while I tore the house apart. There it remained for the next couple of weeks mocking me from the sewing table.  I guess this is proof that cleaning and organizing are good. Don’t tell my husband I said so. Notice the hexagons on the tissue packet.  I think that’s a nice touch.

This thimble had been lovingly used for forty years, which is obvious from the shape the edge has taken on over the years.

I used to carry this with me to do EPP work outside the house.  No more.  I’ve learned a lesson. If I keep the thimble at home, I can at least be fairly sure that if it goes missing again at some point, it will show up again. I do, however, enjoy using a quality thimble when I work, so I am thinking of buying a second sterling silver thimble for traveling, and I have been looking at the ones available on eBay.  If I lose a new sterling silver thimble, all I will have lost is the money necessary to replace it… no big deal.  I won’t have lost something of sentimental value.