My Tuesday-ish treasure #1

I've joined up with a little game of show-and-tell organised by Clare at Clare's Craftroom aptly named Treasure Tuesday. In my case this week I am calling it Tuesday-ish treasure after a very busy Tuesday out and about.

The idea is that we select a special treasure from around our home that in some way holds great value to us, although not necessarily to anyone else. No doubt there will be the childhood toys, inherited goodies and special things lovingly handmade by family, both young and old. So often with these treasures there is a wonderful story to tell about the time, people and place that makes our treasures what they are. I'm looking forward to sharing these stories and seeing what others hold dear and why.

The first thing I thought of was this cardigan. It is so special for a number of reasons. It was knitted by my grandmother in about 1994 while I was a poor and cold uni student in Launceston. At this stage there were no great-grandchildren to knit for as there are now, so she wanted to make something to keep me warm. Her letters during the cold months in these years always finished off with 'keep warm, dear'.

But that's not all. My late grandfather was rather handy on his metal lathe and spent many hours in his shed turning both timber and metal into something special. He made many, many timber bowls and canisters with lids. He would even design and make a new machinery part from metal for Dad's broken down tractor or back hoe. And so it was that he turned these wooden buttons on his lathe for my cardigan and then finished them with a coat of varnish.

But the story doesn't end there either. The timber he used is not just your ordinary scrap timber. It is macrocarpa, cut from trees by my father grown on our dairy farm at Yolla where I grew up from the age of 14. Mum and Dad have since sold the farm, after 15 years of hard work.

All this makes it fairly special, I reckon. I can't imagine not having it. It brings back so many memories, of my grandparents at this time, the farm and the five years at uni during which I wore it lots!! It's amazing that, apart from having stretched a bit, it has worn so well.