Jiminy Cricket

Personally, I have always looked upon cricket as organised loafing. - William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury 1925.

Cricket is one of those games that is classed as a 'boys' game in English schools, so the girls rarely play it and very few have any concept of the rules. I wasn't so lucky. My brothers both played, but the one closest in age to me was exceptional at it. Muggins here is also rather good at it - well bowling anyway because Boy Wonder needed someone to practise with. Granted at times most younger sisters would take great delight in throwing a very hard leather ball at their brother but it gets awfully boring never being allowed to bat. Since we're very much a sporting family (5 siblings and an inbuilt competitive nature) I'm very keen to encourage my nephews in various sports. That's why I didn't mind being conned into making Kyle a cricket slipover when he was chosen for the school team.

Cricket is a game which the British, not being a spiritual people, had to invent in order to have some concept of eternity. - Lord Mancroft

Thanks goodness he didn't want sleeves. I know the feeling on the eternity front, this took forever to knit. Cables bore me. There - I said it! They bore me. Although I started this with gusto I definitely tapered off towards the end. I had wanted it done for last weekend but took 3 days off from knitting as an avoidance tactic. The knitty gritty - I almost went for a cotton blend for this, but then I remembered that cream is a ridiculous colour for cricket as the players get covered in grass stains so I went for acrylic instead. I figured something that could be thrown in the washer and tumble dryer would be appreciated more by my sister. It took 200g of cream plus scraps to match his school uniform. It's quite a soft acrylic and feels really nice. The pattern came from Patons Summer Collection 1987 and was slightly adapted to look like the official England team jumpers. I chose to make it in the round to save time on seaming even though it drives me nuts to knit round and round in circles. He's a gangly 11 year old so I made it a 36" chest as they are worn long and baggy, he should get wear out of it next summer too. His other great love is swimming but I don't think he'd thank me for knitted trunks.