Vintage Red and Purple Fibonacci Tunic

This sweater is 20 years old, give or take a month or two. It is mostly silk, with touches of wool or silk/wool blend, and just a smidgen of mohair. It was my first "sleeve sweater", and it covered one pregnancy and a multitude of sins.



Do you remember "Units"? I was the first woman in my congregation to wear them. I was not, alas, the first woman to look good in them; that would have been a svelte blonde woman with an unlikely first name and a personality so warm and gentle that it was impossible to hate her. I wore this sweater over a "Units" cowlneck with the overlong, wrinked sleeves and the overlong cowl neck (which I think is in the back of my closet somewhere) and the basic black skirt (ditto).



Color's not good on the sleeves, but at least you can see how it starts out small and normal, stripes Kaffe-ishly at the wrist, and then explodes into lush abundance at the wrist and makes a bold dash for the shoulder. I think I knitted this up on 3's and 5's, but it's been 20 years and I've slept since then.



This is the back, where left-brain symmetry gave way to right-brain spontaneity and major stashbusting. So major that I didn't think ahead 20 years and keep some for inevitable repairs. And thus it is that I have one small hole and nothing with which to patch it.

This is the winter that I figure out how to rectify that small omission. Even if it means that I drag out my stash of silk ribbons for silk ribbon embroidery and hope the hole is not in a strategic location. [I could get up and inspect the sweater at this point, but why?] A hydrangea bush embroidered over one boob does not count as a clever, discreet repair. Not in this woman's botanical garden, anyway!