Heidi Munan, Chief of the Knitting Brigade, all for a good cause

THE KNITTING BRIGADE

“I want to join the brigade”.

The petite Chinese woman who’d just spoken stood very straight and firm, in between two occupied chairs, thus breaking a large and full circle of seated knitters.

Heidi’s eyes slowly moved away from her needles and rose to meet the new comer’s look.“Can you knit?”

“No.” Was the woman’s reply. “You teach me?”

Every woman in the group looked up as one; every one of them was smiling. “Grab yourself a chair and sit next to me.” Heidi instructed before adding “and, ladies, let’s make our circle a little bigger.”

This is how Lily became a member of our fondly nick-named (by me) Knitting Brigade.

All plaids and quilts are made for cancer stricken children

I used to knit a little, back then, when I still lived in France. When I followed Hubby to Borneo with only one metallic trunk and a regular suitcase – hardly a removal – only God knows why felt I had to pack my knitting needles? I mean, and honestly, why expect to be doing any knitting in the tropics, cooked-up in a 30 something degrees Celsius steamy atmosphere? Thirty years fast forward, Heidi provided me with the answer when she recruited me to knit for cancer stricken children and made me take my needles out of their old container.

Heidi is a gifted knitter who makes quirky dolls that represent various ethnics of Sarawak where we live.  She is what I call a “generation knitter” from the Swiss Alps. My theory is that knitting is in her DNA, inherited from a long line of Helvetian women. Knitting is in her bones, while her brain works fast and her heart beats in the right place, the right combination of gifts to come up with the generous initiative of recruiting volunteers to get together once a week and knit a myriad of colourful yarns into 7.5cm squares which she assembles with a crochet into wonderfully cheerful blankets that children can hold and hug while in the ward and back home.

Some of Heidi’s dolls can be purchased at the Museum Cafe

The Knitting Brigade is constantly growing with new and regular members who gather every Wednesday morning from 10.00 to 12…ish at the Sarawak Museum Shop & Café at the Tun Abdul Razak Museum. There are irregular members too: ladies who commute between their countries of origin and Kuching. They are friends whom we miss for a few months and hug fondly when they come back for a long visit.

The Knitting Brigade is really an ever expandable circle of friends made-up of colourful characters who bring their invaluable cheers and stories to share not only with other knitters but, too, with the Café’s customers, locals or travellers.

A Batik Kooch, based on the crooked tailed cats of Kuching (Kuching means CAT) one of many items selling at the Museum Cafe

In fact, choosing the Museum Café to meet was a call from the heart as both Heidi and I (and Annette, and Anita, and Rosnah) are old friends of the Sarawak Museum and of its gardens. When the Café offered us a “place de charme” amongst beautiful vintage furniture and classy displays of books, old maps and crafts made by some of the most talented Sarawak artisans, we simply blended in and, somehow, my latte started to taste better at the Museum Café!         

The Knitting Brigade