Save the World/Mellow Yellow:Keep Knitting alive

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This morning, on Good Morning New Zealand, the TV presenters said that skills like sewing and knitting are lost because we don't pass it on to our children. How true, as a kid, I learn sewing from my mum, sister and teachers. But my girls were not interested. One was interested in me knitting for her. I once even have a boy come and ask me to show him to sew. 

Recently one of my boy students said he wanted to sew, and would I teach him. I told him you better ask your parents first. Sadly, he didn't come back.

I used to knit a lot, but the computer virus had captured me, and the last time I knitted was 2 years ago.  I am posting these photos, to give you hints of short cuts and how to knit for fun.

It will be good to preserve this skill and don't let knitting be a dying art.


  

In the old days, the main knitter usually got a child to put his hands out while she makes  a ball. I didn't understand why then, but after Saturday, I knew. In the old days, the wool came like my yellow wool. Not a ball type. As I knitted along, the wool tangled into a terrible mess.

My son would only hold the wool for me to demonstrate, no way was he going to sit and have his hands still for 15 minutes. I devised a way only a lazy person would think of. I put it at the back of the chair. Not as easy as a person holding it, but good enough.

Casting the beginning stitches. I use the Chinese method which looks funny, but making knitting the first row much easier, as the stitches are not as tight as the European way. You use two needles.

When you have casted off the number of stitches, gently remove one needle. Be carefully they don't slip off.

I finished knitting my baby blanket on Monday morning. It was 15 in by 15 inch, very small, but suitable for a premature baby. It took me 3 days knitting non stop. I went to the hospital to give it to the NICU. I wanted to give the blanket to a living angel.

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Poppy Flower

 

 25 April is Anzac Day

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It commemorates all New Zealanders and Australians killed in war and also honours returned servicemen and women.
The date itself marks the anniversary of the landing of New Zealand and Australian soldiers – the Anzacs – on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.
The poppy's significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy emblem was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their red colour an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed of trench warfare
Every year, the Vets and their families sell these poppy flowers. When I was in primary school in Borneo, we used to buy them. My teacher told me that the money was  ex-Services and dependants. Later, when Sarawak became part of Malaysia, they stopped selling poppies. feathers were sold instead.                                                                                                 
In my ESOL adult class, I teach ANZAC day to the new immigrants. I was glad to have L and E who lived through the war to assist me. "Lest we forget" doesn't mean as much as those who lived thhrough those horrible days.     

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Watery Wednesday: Boats of Sarawak

To the children growing up in Sarawak, Borneo, along the 350 miles long Rejang River, "Sing Hai Ching" will give a pang of nostalgia. These river queens used to ply up and down the river, picking up passengers and goods. 

According to the boat owner, it is around 60 years old. That was not the original boat. The one I recalled when I was in lower secondary was very different. The owner might have upgraded a few times though retaining the name

Unfortunately, they were forced to retire and give way to the aeroplane looking type of express boats. This royalty  is now relegated to pick up goods from Bintangor to Tanjong Manis, a tiny town at the sea.


The Reunion of Kai Chung School, aka Lau Peng Yu, July 7, 2012,  is initiated by Jenny Yaw Peng and  Mag Yaw Lee. Francis is doing his part as a local here in Bintangor, knowing that a lot of our long lost friends ; ex-teachers are coming back to this beautiful small hometown. 

Please contact on their Facebook:
Francis




 Jenny

The Grand Lady has been replaced by these aeroplane looking boats called express. They halves the time and nobody took the old launches again.  But these expressess were  deadly time bombs, the windows don't open and if it sinks, you sink with it.

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Ruby red/rednesday" Japanese lunch box.

I was very privileged to meet Chinatsu and be her friend. She is from Japan and we were both faculty wives at Nanyang Technological University.  We did a lot of things together, Bible Study and she cooked Japanese food for our Foodsale. We both loved plants, and my first "Jiang Mien Li" aka see you for the first time gift was a big flowering pot of Jasmine plant.Little did I know that jasmine was her Chinese Father in law's favourite plant, and that gift helped him adapt to life in Singapore.

Though I had left Singapore about 6 years ago, we kept in contact. One year, my husband went to visit Singapore, and she gave a very nice CD to me. He likes it very much and plays it in his car. My car can't play any CD, so I enjoy the music when I am in his car.

I guess you all have heard how petite and nicely presented the Japanese ladies make their food. What Chinatsu packed for her daughter Yiling's lunch box puts me to shame.

It makes me think of a Chinese saying;

Live in a western house,
Marry a Japanese wife,
Eat Chinese food.

That's Utopia.  A Japanese wife is subservient to her husband. 

I post the lunch box, not Chinatsu, because I didn't ask her permission. Perhaps next time.

Rirra Kuma Bento

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sunday bridge, scenic sunday. going to the bush

A bridge at the slope of the Waitakerie ranges so you can go on a trek for 4 days. We were not prepared, we went on a 3 hour one. The bridge is the easy part, afterwards, you have to walk on the muddy trek.






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Yellow beach flowers at Omaha beach.

Sending flowers to Robin Gibb, wishing him a speedy recovery.

Thank you NixBlog for IDing this plant. My big sister R will be delighted.

We went to Omaha beach in Summer. there were fields and fields of yellow flowers. The shrub was about 2 feet tall.

The evening primrose plant is one of the few native wildflowers in North America. As the name suggests, the yellow evening primrose blooms at night. It produces lovely yellow flowers from May to July.
It is considered to have a wide array of medicinal uses from relieving headaches and inducing labor to curing baldness and as a treatment for laziness. All parts of the evening primrose plant can also be eaten. The leaves are eaten like leaves and the roots are eaten like potatoes.














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