Clem's knitting olympic jumper

As I mentioned, my project for the Knitting Olympics was the Manly Sweater by Debbie Stoller from her book Stitch and Bitch. (I'll blog more about the book later). At first I thought I would knit a hat for my February personal project but once I committed to the Knitting Olympics, I knew it would be a jumper - this sweater.

Three years ago, I inherited my late mother-in-law's stash. (She wasn't my mother-in-law at the time and is infact someone I never got the opportunity to meet.) From what I saw of her finished objects (including some of Clem's jumpers), she was quite a good knitter (not many complex cables and lace, but good solid well knit jumpers). While her yarn is currently now in my possession (you can read about the stash inheritance here), I don't perceive it as mine. I still see it as her yarn and that I can only use the yarn for stuff for Clem or Clem's dad. I'm just a surrogate knitter. Now I have no idea what she planned to knit with the yarn and so I have to decide what to knit hte yarn into and ever since I saw the 16 balls of Crucci Original Knits 50g Colour ‘Aran’ 100% Wool 8 ply I knew that I was going to knit Clem a jumper (just as his mum had before).I'd actually decided on the Manly Sweater (as it suited Clem, I liked the look of it - even if it was straightforward and it reminds me of another jumper Clem has that he looks good in). So when I thought about what jumper (as it needed to be a challenge - and to me nothing smaller than a jumper would really be a challenge) to knit for the Knitting Olympics, it wasn't actually a decision.

I swatched during the day on Saturday 13th February and cast on as the torch was lit as per the Knitting Olympic tradition. More tomorrow on how that went...