Knitting Pretty

With Superstorm Sandy having ushered the cold season in with quite a flair last week, I took the opportunity to move my summer tops to a high rung in my closet and position my winter clothes on a lower bar where I can reach them more easily for the next few months. In doing so, I spied this beautiful red and black knit tunic by Style & Co. for Macy’s, which my best friend’s mother, Joyce, sent to me from Spokane, Washington last spring in a box of like-new clothing she didn’t want anymore. I loved the matching attached scarf. It would be perfect for the coming season's blustery weather.  Red is my favorite color, so as soon as I saw the sweater tucked in among other winter tops in my closet a few days ago, I knew I had to find a way to incorporate it into this week’s wardrobe.

Since the temperatures were a bit too chilly today for three-quarter length sleeves, even knit ones, I chose a simple long-sleeved black Tee to layer beneath the tunic. I selected my heaviest-weight black leggings, by Studio M, also from Macy’s, and pulled on some vintage black boots by Pleaser, which I recently had refurbished at my local shoe-repair shop. The boots look just like new now, even though I’ve owned them for more than thirty years. I couldn’t be more pleased.

For jewelry I picked out some sparkly red crystal drop earrings I bought when I lived in Dallas, Texas in the 1990s, an antiqued gold-metal ear-cuff in a snowflake motif in honor of the Nor’easter that brought a new cold front to Maryland last night (and a few snowflakes, as well), a bracelet of painted red wood disks, and a cute black bead and crystal fashion ring I found at Kokopelli Boutique at the Towson Towne Center Mall last Saturday.

It was a good thing I bundled up for my lengthy commute to Washignton D.C. for a day of research at the Library of Congress. On the way home, while driving along Interstate 95, the busy north-south corridor which stretches from Florida clear to Maine, my rental car (which I’ve been using while my car is in the shop after being smashed in last week’s hurricane) blew a rear tire. As luck would have it, this frightening incident occurred just as I was approaching a rest area on the interstate, so I eased my rental, a Nissan Versa, down the off-ramp and pulled up behind a tow-truck which happened to be parked to one side of the road.

I approached the driver cautiously, not wishing to wake him if he was napping. But the nice young man was not asleep and he quickly offered to put on my spare tire while I called the rental company to report what happened. My handsome hero (he really was a hunk!) made quick work of the tire-change, something that would have taken me an hour or more to do on my own, and I was soon on my way home once again. Was it my "new" red and black sweater that brought me such luck? We’ll never know. But I was immensely grateful for the kindness of a stranger today.

Cheers,

Lynell