Spot the Frippet: needle.

For those of you who enjoy a challenge, I direct you to the nearest haystack.

For the rest of us, spotting a needle is easy, and spotting a knitting needle is even easier. 

Needlecord is corduroy with a narrow ribs (the sort of stuff often used to make trousers) and needlepoint is a picture embroidered on a printed piece of canvas.

Then there's...but hang on a minute, I've used the word needle so often I've stopped believing in it: needle, needle, needle...

...can that really be a word? 

Well, it is according to the dictionary, where needle time is the amount of time a radio station spends playing music. (In the olden days music was played by drawing a needle round and round the grooves of a record).



This cheery-looking chap is a needlefish.

If all else fails, why not find one of those buttons that have been lying about on the windowsill for weeks and sew it on. 

You'll very easily be able to spot a needlewoman, then.*

Spot the frippet: needle. This word comes from the Old English nǣdl.

*As I've never heard of a needleman I assume needlewoman covers both sexes. And why not?