Knit An Eddie The Eagle Jumper

Eddie the Eagle image courtesy of The Daily Mail

Can you remember as far back as 1988? In the Calgary Winter Olympics Eddie 'The Eagle' became an international star by coming last at ski jumping. We Brits like a loveable loser and Eddie was the epitome of the genre - he still kept his smile when he was at the bottom of the pile and was the UK's first ever Olympic ski jumping entrant.

Now Eddie's story has been made into a film. Taron Egerton (no, I haven't heard of him either, but he's set for A list stardom) plays adult Eddie whilst Hollywood stalwart Hugh Jackman is his coach.

Here comes the knitting connection ...

Image courtesy of the Eddie the Eagle film

Eddie's mum wore a hand-knitted jumper with 'I'm Eddie's mum' emblazoned on it when she went to support her son. The Yarn Loop website reports that, to tie in with the film's release, Yarn Stories has produced a free Eddie the Eagle hat pattern to download. The crew went one better, according to Rowan's March e-newsletter, having had 'I'm Eddie's' jumpers designed for them by US knitting retailer Laura Zander using Rowan's Pure Wool Worsted.

My favourite is Egerton's 'I play Eddie' jumper (centre below).

Image courtesy of Rowan

I doubt I'll be knitting my own Eddie the Eagle hat or jumper anytime soon but the story put a big smile on my face and brought back memories from my childhood.

Go, Eddie, go!