Saturday, March 27, 2010

A Tale of Two Scarves

It was the best of times. . .




(vintage orange leather jacket found at our church rummage sale nine years ago for three, yes, THREE dollars)




. . .it was the worst of times. . .

The scarf I knitted to make a pretty barrier between my skin and the jacket was missing at the end of market shopping one day.

For months I wore a ho-hum substitute, but then I got a brilliant idea:



It's just cotton from my stash, with no lining, and topstitched around the edge after I turned it. The weight is just right and the colors make me so happy.



And the very week after I made it, my little girl said as we strolled into market, "MOM!! THere's your scarf!!" There it was, on a shelf above a flower stand. It was overlooked for weeks by the market staff and me, but spotted by my sharp-as-a-tack daughter.



(knitted from pink cotton yarn and a crazy yarn that looked like string with tabs of pink and orange shoelaces every few inches; I knitted that scarf maybe 5 years ago)



And because I adore this quote and want to give it full justice, not just a playful poke:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way." Charles Dickes - the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities

10 comments:

Rebecca said...

Where would we be without English majors? And color geniuses, for that matter.

Rebecca

Beth said...

Orange is my second favorite color (after blue)! What a fun jacket and a neat story about the lost and found scarf + the new scarf you made. And, it IS always good to have a meaty classic quote.

50sgal said...

What a cute idea for a 'summer weight' scarf in the guise of a 'winter style' scarf. Very clever indeed. I adore scarves, of course I wear the tradition squares or rectangle silk/old lady scarf-being 1956 for me. I love wearing my head scarf in the summer with my glasses a la' movie star or even on a windy day to keep my hair in place. I always laugh when I will see another person doing this and they are almost always 80 or so.

Margo said...

50sgal, I admire your style. I'm not sure I have enough nerve yet to wear a scarf a la Jackie-O, but I do love that look!

Jennifer Jo said...

What a stunning jacket. I'm timid when it comes to clothes, but oh, how I long to break free!

Christian - Modobject@Home said...

Okay, the jacket pretty, nearly, perfectly awesome... and both the scarves are keepers!

Meghan said...

That's my all time favorite book!

Margo said...

Jennifer Jo, I felt like a walking neon sign for a little while when I first started wearing the jacket! But not any more. And anyway, your profile picture has those awesome blue flats, so truly, are you timid?

Simple in France said...

I'm so impressed with both scarves . . .AND your vintage leather jacket find! Great work. My husband was just showing me a similar (not on sale) jacket he thought would look cute on me . . .I think he doesn't like my spring jacket ;).

But leather jackets cost so much! Vintage coats are a great way to go.

Catherine said...

I love that quote too, the whole book in fact. I first read it as an 18yr old, cried buckets at the nobility and death of Sidney . What a sweet story of a lost scarf
Cx