Sweater back home after 50 years

Sweater gets lots of wear over 50 years before it makes unexpected return to family of the woman who made it when she was a teenager

SYDNEY MINES, N.S. – Sandra Rice's daughter-in-law had just walked in the door when she immediately recognized the sweater her ninemonth-old granddaughter was wearing.

It was one Sandra knit in 1973 when she was 18 and still a Campbell.

"I knew as soon as I saw it. You always recognize your own work," said the 68year-old Sydney Mines woman.

At first, her daughter-inlaw, Stephanie Rice, laughed at the idea. It was impossible that this sweater – handed down to her from her friend, Chelsea Felton, who had it handed down by another friend, Gemma Cook, who had bought it at a thrift store 12 years ago – could have been Sandra's

Stephanie looked at the tag sewn in the collar, hanging on by a thread, which read, "Made especially for you by Sandra" and started to wonder if her mother-in-law was right.

Then Sandra produced the ribbon she won at the Cape Breton Exhibition for the sweater, the only secondplace ribbon out of numerous first places, and Stephanie realized baby Iris Rice's new cardigan was made by her grandmother before her father was even born.

"Never in a million years did I think I'd see that sweater again," Sandra said during a phone interview on Nov. 29.

DECADES OF FAMILIES

Along with the tag, which has now been reattached, the wooden buttons are original and the sweater fits babies, toddlers and young children.

A mustard brown colour, Sandra gave the sweater to her sister-in-law for her children, and it got passed through the family through the 1980s and 1990s.

At some point, the sweater was donated to a thrift store

like Value Village or the Salvation Army, and Sandra had long stopped thinking of it as it became a family favourite for others.

Stephanie said when Cook gave Felton the sweater she'd asked it be returned because all five of her children had worn it and they loved it so much.

But Felton passed it on to Stephanie who is very grateful it made it back to the Rice Family.

"They don't make clothes of this good quality anymore," said Stephanie as Sandra agreed.

"It's amazing how this sweater seems to fit children of any age."

Sandra added, "And it's good for boys and girls."

FULL CIRCLE

When Sandra saw the sweater and recognized it as the one she made in 1973, she thought it was a sign.

"It's like you just went full circle, and I just thought that day I was going to die," she said with a small laugh.

"It brought back so many memories. When I held it, I felt like I was 18 again."

For Stephanie, having the sweater come back to her family through a thrift store buy and her friends who have become family is simply "incredible" and her family is "blown away" by it.

"Usually with hand-medowns I just throw them in the wash. Not that I don't care about them, but they've already gone through a lot of kids," she said.

"This sweater was different. I could tell it was well made, made by someone. If I had of thrown it in the wash the tag would have come off . ... It is really special that sweater came back to her granddaughter."