Something like 3300 knitters all cast on together during the opening ceremonies last night — and I was almost not among them. This is because my husband wanted me to drive him somewhere. For a moment, I considered explaining that I was competing in Women’s Modular for the Welsh Olympic knitting team and could not miss the opening ceremonies, but only for a moment. I could envision the look of blank incomprehension he would offer me.
So my plan, which included cleaning up the house, preparing a well-balanced dinner, and checking all my knitting books for a modular pattern before the opening ceremonies began, had to be adjusted. I did start on time, but in a house in complete disarray, with popcorn and pizza for the meal (#1 son helped me out with the menu — can you tell?)
Here is the cat, completely unconcerned about the total disarray.
I have decided that my event is learning modular knitting. I will make a headband according to the pattern and then, eschewing Sighkey’s tempting suggestion of a matching garter, figure out how to make a matching bag.
I like this one, from the Knitting Basket. Obviously, I do not have time to order their pattern. However, it is just a rectangle. Once I master modular knitting, I should have no trouble whipping this up — or perhaps a much smaller one, given the time constraints.
I believe that this is essentially the same as Tychus, with some modification to make it flat rather than curved.
A little math should do it. Suggestions welcomed.
If you noticed any overtones of sarcasm here, it is because I am not finding the modular headband at all easy. This is good, since it is a challenge, and it may turn out that the headband is all I can accomplish in the allotted time. This is because the directions read like this: “K1, K1inc, K2, turn, K2, K1inc,K4, turn, K1, K1inc, K7, turn…” That’s just from memory, but I promise you that this gives you the feeling of them. And they go on like that for entire paragraphs.
So if you look away from them for a moment — perhaps to admire the cows being pushed around by skaters while people in cow-patterned party clothes dance on ice — then you have barely any hope of guessing where you are when you look back at the directions. And should you look away for any length of time, possibly distracted by the patterns of the Estonian delegation’s mittens, or trying to get a clear view of the New Zealander’s cape, it is very easy to find that you have done half the current module on top of the previous module. In short, I spent equal amounts of time frogging and knitting. Here is all the progress I made last night.
I do have to say that the textiles at last night’s ceremony were not impressive. Some interesting things were done with fur and feathers, but I think that the next Winter Knitting Olympics should begin before the athletic one, and we should all knit some snazzy scarves and hats for the teams. There are enough of us that we could have done that.
Now, in case you were wondering about the Bad Soap, I can report that it is rehabilitated. Having left it in the crockpot all week, I took an electric mixer to it, and poured it out into a mold to see what would happen. When I filled the emptied crockpot with hot water, I got all these lovely soap bubbles, and this morning the soap itself was recognizably soap, not pond scum. We have saponification!
My plan today is to get all my errands and chores done in the morning so that I can spend the afternoon and evening knitting (and frogging) for Team Wales. Y Ddraig Goch ddyry gychwyn!
Ha, Ha, at first reading of your last entry I thought you said you were knitting a headboard and thought, wow that’s ambitious, and then after rereading ah ha, the head band. Yes the modular knitting is beautiful but does require much attention. I do want to try that hat they have sometime, when I can really focus. Now that bag is awsome. I have to investigae that. Saponification, now thats a word.
I was watching the three hour long ceremony last night. It was quite interesting with the Ferrari and Cirque de Soleil effects. We talked about how I shoudl join Team Romania b/c i liked the flag. This led to your reasons for joining Team Wales. We assumed that each of the 80 participating countries would have their own knitting team.
There is no Team Wales in the Olympics.
I did the modular scarf from this group… http://groups.yahoo.com/group/multidirectional/ and if you do the scarf pattern she gives you a second diamond pattern and a hat pattern, and if you do that in Artyarns you get another pattern. It seems to be a continuous thing and she updates the deadline dates every couple of weeks, so if you don’t make the deadline just quit the group and rejoin and you’ll be set for the next deadline. 🙂 And their files section has the Artyarns toutorials which is just a bunch of modular knitting lessons. When Iris makes up a new lesson there’s some kind of mailing list you can get on to recieve it. Happy Knitting!!! Looks like your kitty coach isn’t concerned at all. 🙂
I just came from Leonidas’ site (and I know I see you around on TheWaterJar’s), and I just wanted to say that I’m always pretty impressed with your comments. You are much more involved in commenting than most, and they are more insightful and well-thought. Hope life’s been good to you, and keep it up!
Haha, not in the slightest, though at one point in my immature development I was a goth. Kinda why I know the lexicon. Now, it’s just more fun to make fun of them.
Sad as it sounds – I’ve forgotten how to. I need to re-learn how to relax in those ways again. I did try over Christmas and got partway there. Part of the problem is just Time’s Arrow I guess. My brother sister and I are tied up in work, and in lil Sis’s case, still bringing up a teenager (her stepdaughter) whose early life included nothing like the sorts of things we did as kids. I doubt that she would know what a picnic is and she would probably find one very boring as she is a nearly 16 yr old whose main interest seems to be boys at the moment. The Kid, who probably would enjoy clambering around on sandhills and rocks even though she is nearly 21 is working 5 or 6 days a week as a kitchen manager in a busy student pub so she wouldn’t have the time. And there is only one parent left now and she would not be willing to go the beach anymore. Some things really do stay part of childhood I think, idyllic picnics are probably one of them. Dunedin in the zeros is not the same world as Dunedin of the 60s and 70s – I’m not even sure if dogs are allowed on the beach anymore.
RYC: Yep, the baby stuff is mostly for the groups that the Knitting4childrens yahoo group donates to. My favorite being Warm Hearts Warm Babies. I think K4C has about five or six official groups they are donating to at this time. Like Parkland Hospital, and University of Lubbock in Texas, and the University of Kentucky Medical Center and they just added a new one in NY state.
And yes, I agree on reworking the budget so I save my own money, but dh finds a way to wrangle out of it every time. Last year I tried to save $10-$20 every month til Christmas and even that didn’t go over so well, because he found my stash of money and we needed to pay the propane bill and woosh there it all went. 😛 He does really good making sure everything gets paid and all, but I think I sit and worry too much over what needs to get paid, so I just sit there and don’t spend. But then I never get to see the money that I didn’t spend either! 😛
Those Estonians should have been wearing HAND KNIT mittens, if you ask me. They could’ve done a lot more. Or maybe I’m just being selfish. I did like the various overcoats and fedoras some of the teams were wearing.
I like that little patchwork purse on that website. Is that the one you’re making?