The Bluestocking Women’s Pub - Where Everybody Knows Your Username

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome to the Bluestocking Arms, the home of good company, excellent drinks and delicious cakes which magically have no irksome contents like gluten or sugar or calories or the kind of alcohol that causes problems - but you wouldn't know

Food and drink are served by a keen staff of gerbils, and other animals such as capybaras, quokkas, etc., also fulfil vital roles, while looking cute AF.

New Bluestockingers always welcome.

More research is needed to find a suitable pattern which will fit into 31 stitches and 50 rows, including a border. Designing it is too much for my friend.

Alternatively, something to fit in a Bluestocking blue stocking. None of the patterns for a knitted gerbil on Ravelry is available. 😢 The other pattern is crochet, and my source doesn’t crochet. Do any other Bluestockingers?

Knit a tube, gather it two thirds of the way down ( head and body) stuff it, make ears and tail, embroider eyes, nose and whiskers.

PS I know less than nothing about knitting.

Er, it's a flat blanket, Fuzzy!

I'm halfway through a teddy bear square, & it seems to be going OK so far. 😬

I’m sure if someone was clever enough to knit a gerbil, the lovely woolly hugs women would be happy to deliver it along with the blanket.

That's true. And it's not going to be me. I haven't knitted toys for 50+ years.

Is the sports day over now? I'm sorry to miss it, but I was avidly crocheting & then making/having lunch which included a home-made (but not home-grown) salad. Yet another reason why Boily & I were fundamentally incompatible. wipes away a tear before her face goes rusty.

The idea is that the tiny gerbil goes inside the blue stocking, just like tiny ted will. It's a 3D square.

Does anyone remember the Clothkits children’s jackets, popular in the 80s, which had pockets with little animals to go in them? My children had one each, with tape attached to both the animal and the toy so they didn’t get lost. I loved them.

I see they still sell something similar.

Perhaps that’s where this idea came from.

Edit: if other Maths people object to the idea of a 3D square, as I ought to, think of a Woolly Hugs “square” as a knitted or crocheted piece of work which, when combined with others, makes a blanket. It’s a descriptor of a craft piece, not its shape.

I suppose each ‘square’ is more of a cuboid, and some extend further into the third dimension by the addition of stockings, filled or not. An infinitely thin blanket wouldn’t be at all cosy.

Yes, but it's to put in the tiny stocking!

I'll get me coat!

'Catching up' is a lost cause in the Bluestocking when you've been absent for more than 5 minutes, isn't it?😏

So I'll just post a general 😂about all the veggie competition stuff. So much for 'Stop playing with your food!', eh?

Thank you to all the knitters who are representing the Bluestocking in the hug-knitting. I also thought that a small 3D gerbil could be sewn on to the blanket with impunity so to speak - as long as it's not too big. Which probably rules out a capybara, and definitely rules out a giant wombat.
Colin the Dachshund could take up two adjacent squares, couldn't he?😄

Woley's blue stocking is a great idea, thank you for doing it.
Your weekend with DS1 and family sounds lovely, and what lucky kids to get that impressive climbing frame! Does it come in small medium and large ? can we get a Large for the Bluestocking garden, it sounds like so much fun!:-)😂

May I share a completely random anecdote, which has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was sweet in a funny kind way:

I saw a bit of an U20 international rugby match on TV, between Ireland and...somebody - and as Irl brought on a sub, the commentator said 'Nobody will be more proud than his mother, who is here today - she too played for Ireland, and they are now the first mother and son to both have represented their country at international level'.

The idea that a boy and his mother are linked by the fact that they both represented their country at rugby is pleasantly gender-stereotype-critical, isn't it?

Oh, I like the idea of Colin across two squares!

Sorry, I misunderstood the size & purpose of the gerbil.

I was wondering how many Bluey-related squares would be appropriate - maybe there should be a Bluestocking blanket, to leave the other one as a tribute to Ted?

I could make a small, flattish felt animal. I am limited, in a crafty way.

I've just been listening to this:

x

which is utterly brilliant. (The series is great, too.)

It's not letting me post the link. It's BBC Sounds 'Cautionary Tales', most recent episode, called 'The Nazis, the Bomb, and the Woman that Science Forgot'.

I fervently agree with all this, and feel that insufficient notice generally is given to the thickness of knitting.

I think in my darkest days I would love a blanket with bluestocking references all over, it would be a joyous thing to receive, and make me feel i really mattered, somewhere, it is a lovely thing that people are doing.

Oh my goodness Just spent the last 30 mins catching up on the posts from today and I am crying with laughter. 😂 I am sitting outside in the garden on my own although the neighbours pony is giving me quizzical looks through the fence due to noise I suspect.

Have the gerbils been fired out of the cannon yet? Did they wear vegetable costumes or did intense identification work better in the end?

Or were they too relaxed?

No, that's now this evening as the event organiser snoozed from 1pm to 5.30pm. The gerbils tried waking her up with no joy. A hungry cat an hour and a half past feeding time was successful.

Hello everyone, is it okay if I sit quietly with my coffee? I’ve found you after a mention on the Woolly Hugs thread.

Of course it is @MadisonAvenue. Join in anything you want to join in, ignore anything you want to ignore.

@Boiledbeetle is a conscientious, driven, hardworking type, but some of the rest of us think sitting quietly is an excellent life goal.

Welcome! Would you like something off the trolley, to go with that coffee?

@ifIwerenotanandroid wrote I was wondering how many Bluey-related squares would be appropriate - maybe there should be a Bluestocking blanket, to leave the other one as a tribute to Ted?

The Woolly Hugs blanket wants 99 6” squares. Standard WH blankets are 48” by 60”, so 80 squares. My source could make as many as needed, or even produce a blanket all on her own, but not by the current mid-July deadline.

As things stand, she’d prefer just to stick with what she’s already committed to on the WH thread, but is open to hearing other points of view. Gerbils, capybara and Colins are beyond her, though. Note also that the WH blanket has a defined group of yarns and colours to be used, so that the result will wash well, and look planned and not random.

Random - Bluestockingers?

some of the rest of us think sitting quietly is an excellent life goal.

I resemble that remark!

Mmm. And nobody could put a blanket together better than the WH ladies. Nice idea, but probably better as a virtual entity (like most of the contents of the Bluestocking 😁).