It's too bad I couldn't have gotten a better picture, but we'll live with this ... this is my preparatory cast-on loop, needle in hand, while they carried the Olympic flag into BC Center (or whatever it was called).
I officially started as they lit the flame ... although it was too funny, I mirrored the minor (and in no way marring) dysfunction of the flame ceremony by temporarily completely forgetting how to cast on!
I had this problem when I started Baby Blanket The First, since it had been so long since I had started a new project, but it came back to me very quickly. This time I just had a total brain fart, and it took me probably close to an entire minute to remember how! Okay, a minute doesn't sound long, unless you're a knitter and you picture twisting yarn in random ways about your hand for an entire 60 seconds while trying to remember the precise configuration to make a long-tail cast on possible.
But I got it, and cast on, and got several rows into the project before deciding to sideline it to write about the auspicious moment.
Seventeen days. Yup. It's gonna be a challenge, garter stitch baby blanket or not.
By the way, this is actually an excellent project for the olympics, because it's all knit stitch, all the time, and sometime in the last few years I finally developed the ability to work for a small stretch without looking at my knitting, as long as it's all knit stitch. It's not, like, minutes, but it's long enough to not miss the good stuff.
When I first heard that some people had such a skill, I thought they must be fiber savants, and that there was no way I could ever do that. But it is a learnable skill, with practice.
That's particularly handy for the olympics, where looking away for even a moment could cause you to miss a Big Moment (as opposed to a movie, where there's a far larger cushion of time you can ignore stuff). Now, instead of watching my knitting and only getting to glance at the TV from time to time, I can watch the events I want to watch, while only having to glance at my knitting from time to time.
And, I thought the opening ceremonies were fantastic!!! They (the commentators) kept making comparisons to Beijing, which apparently was pretty spectacular (I believe I watched part of them, but don't remember the details).
I don't think any "comparison" is necessary. This was a beautiful, creative, culturally interesting ceremony ... I really enjoyed it. The 'special effects' were astounding. It was great.
Okay (whip crack) ... back to knitting. Seventeen days? What was I thinking?
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