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!