Monthly moments: May

It's the end of the month and I'm sitting at home nursing cramps and a hot mug of white tea.  I figured this time, I would let the photos speak for themselves.  I've included some extras from Tulipmania, bits and bobs from various outings, a couple of long lens test shots and some from home. 

I have some tea and dinner plans later in the afternoon; hopefully a hot shower between now and then will do me some good.  Happy Friday!

Wool

I finally finished my first ever knitting project (pictures to come) three weeks ago.  I made a scarf for my friend, Shirin, using a dead simple two-by-two rib stitch.  That gave me all the confidence I needed to start on a never-ending series of scarves for random people in my life until I realised that I was lacking the other essential component.  Yarn.

Technically, the best place that I know of is Golden Dragon Store in People's Park Centre, but it is so inaccessible that I decided to rush down to Spotlight on a lunch break instead.  Because Amanda came with me from work, she got caught up in the yarn buying frenzy and decided she wanted to learn to knit as well.

Now, I'm not the best of teachers and especially not for handicraft.  I've dropped more stitches and frogged things more times than I care to admit.  And I'm ashamed to say that I cried with frustration after my first knitting class because I couldn't even remember how to cast on.  But, despite all that, I'm quite pleased with how far I've come.

I only had the time to take one basic class and after making nothing but squares, I decided to man up and learn everything else from YouTube.  And I'm of the opinion that if someone like me can learn something like this by watching out-of-focus videos, anybody can.  So I said yes, and Amanda bought cheap needles and two balls of yarn.

I, on the other hand, totally went nuts.  As you can see above, there are five scarves in the offing.  I got a nubbly 7mm yarn with a seafoam green sparkle, some extremely odd 4mm black and white ringlets that I'm beginning to regret, two variations on pink for 10mm needles and the one I'm most excited to try out, variegated blue-green mesh.

I also got some hot pink 4mm needles, a set of fat wooden needles in 7, 9, 10 and 12mm and a wicker basket on sale for $13.  I think the basket looks quite sweet tucked next to the DVD collection in our living room.  (Any questionable DVDs don't belong to me.  Except Guys and Dolls.  Man, I own that shit.)    

We had our very first lesson in the middle of a quiet Burger King.  I practised making my instructions super clear and Amanda learned fast, so she was knitting in no time.  I went through how to cast on, knit and tink (Tinking is un-knitting.  Knitters are cute like that).  Along the way, we practised tension and subsequently, we had a purling lesson and a discussion about ribbing and stockinette.

For a beginner like a me, teaching a newer beginner can be a great way to gain information.  I've learned so many new things that I can't wait to try out.

Last week, we had our first "Stitch and Bitch" over breakfast in a cute cafe near work.

I can't believe I literally created a knitting buddy in two hours!  I feel like Dr Frankenstein with a loyal minion!  (Amanda is going to smack me at work when she reads this.)

She's working with some super pretty cotton candy yarn that has blue and yellow running through it.

La Ristrettos is a quaint nook made all the more cool by the fact that it's hidden on the eighth floor of Novena Medical Centre.  I love this idea... hospitals are such horrible places to be, so imagine you've just had your physiotherapy (or lipo) and you're stomping miserably down the corridor, and suddenly, coffee!  And wooden tables and brick walls and trees, oh my!

I first saw this cafe when I was in the sports medicine centre on assignment years ago.  The garden, replete with willows, ponds and wicker chairs, rose out in the middle of the building like a miracle.  Through the plate glass, I could see people enjoying coffee.  I wanted so badly to find it again, and now I have.

The food is all right and the coffee quite tasty, but I would keep coming back just because it feels so much like a magic garden.  For the two hours that we were there, I was completely at peace.

How could you not be zen?  I'm looking forward to many mornings of stitching and bitching to come.  Here's to being grandmas!

PS  As I sat down to write this earlier, I got a frantic call from the above-mentioned telling me that she had knit when she was supposed to purl and couldn't remember how to undo it.  After several instructions, whatsapp photos and a dropped stitch, she made an emergency drive to my house with Ben.  I unravelled and re-knit two rows while they chatted with my mom and it ended up being a very pleasant mishap.

Except when my mom saw me standing behind Amanda giving instructions, laughed uproariously and said, "I can't imagine you teaching anyone how to knit.  You're such a klutz."  Hmph.  I'll have you know she's quite a klutz too.

Burnt-out hearts

Last week I went to Gardens By the Bay with my family.  Tulipmania was winding down, and we wanted the chance to walk through a tulip garden.  I love tulips.  I have ever since a friend of my mother once sent her a breathtaking bouquet of pale white roses and waxy tulip buds wreathed in cool green.

I've heard lots of complaints about Gardens By the Bay but my father worked on the project for several years before he retired and I've come to trust that when they take on a big project, they generally do it right.  

Well, it was beautiful.

The temperature of the Flower Dome seemed to have dropped as well, to keep the masses of flowers perky.  My father and mother took a slow stroll with their friends while I went nuts with the camera.  (I brought my kit lens and though it did cross my mind that the primes might have produced better quality, the kit lens worked out for all the wide shots.)

The theme was Holland, obviously, right down to the languidly turning windmill at the heart of the garden.  They kept looping a faintly ridiculous track of some woman yodelling like in Charlie's Angels (anyone remember that scene?) which made things very festive.

The tulips were planted in barrows, baskets, pots and right down the middle of the dome, in swathes of colour.

Up close, a tulip is a thing of wonder; it looks like it was breathed into life.  My mother pointed out that right before a tulip dies, it blooms properly, flinging its petals wide, baring its whole heart.  That made me a little sad.

Of course, as always, there were other flowers.  I'm a big fan of these velvety kangaroo's paws.  Up close, they resemble a delicate furred forefoot.

As the afternoon sun crept up, the automated shades started drawing closer to keep the flowers cool.  It was impressive to finally watch them in action.

I wore what I call my "flappy pants".  I own three pairs of these, purchased from various seaside towns in Thailand.  They are loose, soft and invariably covered in elephants.  They are so comfortable that I feel like I'm wearing pajamas and if I could, I would wear them all day.  (As it is, I sometimes cheat by donning them for work with a more starched top.)

I made my mother sit and pose in tonnes of photos.  In this one, I told her to look pensively into the diatance.  She was actually laughing behind her hair.  How we suffer for our art!

Afterwards, my father went over to the office to meet his ex-colleagues for a cuppa and I was left to wander round the office.  I love the Gardens By the Bay office.  It's like nothing I've ever seen before, all the furniture is old, heavy wood and the walls are hung with Balinese scrolls.  The other thing I love is the surfeit of weird animals.  There are terrariums dripping with wet plants and plump, glutinous frogs.  The four fish tanks hold all manner of swiftly flicking breeds of fish.  This time, they were even rearing scorpions.  I stopped to watch one hold its barbed tail over its back like a lantern and shuddered. 

And in the lab room downstairs, the very silly Milo and Kopi-O.

After a lovely morning, we curved out of the Gardens and found a sign exhorting us to enjoy some satay.

So we did.

"The tulips make me want to paint,

Something about the way they drop

Their petals on the tabletop

And do not wilt so much as faint,

Something about their burnt-out hearts,

Something about their pallid stems

Wearing decay like diadems,

Parading finishes like starts..."

                         

                                                   -- A. E. Stallings