Jill Lucas

Chef Sera Cuni carries a sort of talisman in her pocket: a heart-shaped stone that reads “Change the World.” It’s there when she greets her team at Cafe Root Cellar in Pittsboro, some of whom are young and just getting started in life. It’s there when she plans menus for her restaurants in Pittsboro and Chapel Hill.

A gathering of the Cape Fear Knitters has the high spirits of a family reunion. In their monthly meeting spot — the third-floor conference room at Novant Health New Hanover Orthopedic Hospital — members soon find their seats and take up current projects. Some comprise just a few rows of stitches; others spill luxuriously across knitters’ laps. Appreciative murmurs overtake the gentle click-clack of knitting needles as a show-and-tell reveals elegant garments made from glistening artisan yarns.

For more than 50 years, a dazzling chandelier has hung in the dining room of the Executive Mansion in Raleigh. Only recently has its remarkable backstory been fully illuminated.