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.

Queenie's tea looks a lot more appetizing that the first cup!😃

How is the permanent home for the Bluestocking coming along?
Will it be ready in 5 pages?
Will the gerbils be fit and happy by then?
Where is Spartacus?

@CautiousLurker01 Your squares are beautiful!

This is a blanket I contributed to (there may have been others since):

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4885639-woolly-hugs-a-blanket-for-fellow-mumsnetter-thegreylady-can-you-help-us-please?page=1

The thread gallery shows individual sets of squares people sent in, & the blanket is on page 10. I see Woley was in on that one, too.

That was in my mind. "Is it on the trolleh?"😂

The cat, having been told off once to often for strolling through the lounge with a gerbil in her mouth, has decamped to Swash's ship were she doesn't get shouted at for chasing small furry things.

Spartacus was last seen 6 days ago, when she photobombed an AI picture of Bluestocking the badger (seriously, I didn't ask for her!).

To give people an idea of what’s worked in the past I’ve just spent half an hour trying, and failing, to find pictures of previous blankets made for Woolly Hugs members who have been bereaved or who are very ill.

I’ve looked through several WH Facebook groups and their MN board. You can see photos of separate squares if you click on one of the threads and then ‘photo gallery’.

No doubt Bluestockingers with more than my basic searching skills will quickly find pictures of completed blankets made for members. This is not the same as the usual WH blankets which are made using a specific acrylic (for consistency and washability) for various good causes who ask for them.

edit: if I hadn’t taken so long writing this post I’d have seen @ifIwerenotanandroid ‘s more helpful one.

Rosy is swabbing the decks. Does no one need a hug ( her proper job) or is it an extra kindness for Swashy?

This is the completed blanket for thegreylady. It was made following the death of her husband.

There are 11 rows of 9 squares, making a blanket of 99 squares in total.

It's lovely to see how each individual square makes up a beautiful artefact.

I'm sure what we make for Squashbuckled will be just as good.

Rosie having got over her initial sea sickness has rather taken to sea life, so much so that she's currently doing her NVQ level 2 deck hand certificate.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4874306-woolly-hugs-a-blanket-in-memory-of-janh?page=15

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4583679-woolly-hugs-a-blanket-for-lovely-junglezgok-whose-wonderful-teenage-son-has-died

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/woolly_hugs

That blanket does look lovely, @MyrtleLion . Thank you for posting it.

I can see one of my source’s squares in there, too.

I always suspected that cats were aliens

It wouldn't surprise me.

Yes, they're monitoring us in a very very long-term study.

While we are on the subject of cats.
My cat is cute and fluffy and very old (15). This is however a completely false image as he is pretty fit and loves to hunt (rats and pigeons, no little songbirds)
He has a perfectly good cat flap, bowl full of food and comfy bed. But he sits at the front door, yowling sadly to be let in, and flirting with anyone who walks past for a cuddle.

This morning he ate a huge bowl of food. 30 minutes later he was chin deep in a large dead pigeon on the front doorstep.
I went out to clear up pigeon, he whips round and does a pitiful meow - let me in, I'm so hungry thing at me.

Unfortunately the effect was entirely lost because he had a mouth full of pigeon feathers.....

They have us well trained.

Many years ago I went round to my granny's and she was frying liver in the pan, and I thought "oh nice, I might get some liver and bacon..."

...turned out she was frying the liver for the cat, who was obviously too fussy to eat it uncooked.

We used to have a cat who, finding it rather infra dig to be stuck in the kitchen with the dogs at night, would somehow get up onto the roof and batter at the dormer windows until he roused a sleeping child who was prepared to let him in.

He was far to lazy to hunt, which suited me nicely.

The permanent Bluestocking... a bit of a sore subject at the mo!

It was all going very well until I started to put all the separate bits together, and realised that the gable walls were too high, and I needed to trim them down quite a bit, but it was very delicate doing that without dislodging anything... and then...and then... 😒
I think I've got over that, but I'm a bit concerned about the roof looking right..

All the funny little interior details are great [if I might say so myself!], it's getting the structure right that's causing problems. And my back does not appreciated all this standing up and bending over, so I have to take a lot of breaks.

There have been moments when I was tempted to pretend that the 'mock-up' photos I posted were the actual finished assembled building, but I couldn't lie to my fellow Stockingers, now could I?😇

Welcome to the Bluestocking, steppemum, I'm glad Queenie the Quokka stepped in to maintain the high standards of service we can usually trust the gerbils to provide

Well done and thank you to all the knitters involved in the woolly hugs for dear Swash 💙

Mine once stood outside banging his head repeatedly against the cat flap.

Thinking he must have lost his magnet I opened the back door to discover the reason he was banging was because he had a dead pigeon in his mouth and it was too big for the cat flap!

I'm so glad he's too old and knackered to bring birds, dead or alive, mice, dead or alive rats dead or alive and bats, always alive, into the house anymore.

I am still waiting for old age to kick in with steppecat.
15, and still harassing foxes and killing pigeons.
He has decided that going under the gate is easier than jumping over, that is his only concession to old age.

All the animals in my house are male, so they are all staying firmly at home, which is just as well, as steppecat would probably eat all the gerbils.

I was feeling very sorry for myself about the needles and wool arriving so late, but I have remembered I have some craft wool remaining from when I used to get a monthly box. (I stopped when I realised I was a bit rubbish at them and felt guilty as they piled up).
So if the wool doesn't arrive on Saturday, I can practise knitting with the craft wool! I might even manage to knit something worthy of showing. Though I think the wool might be the wrong colour or type for the Woolly Hugs.

It's Cotton Yarn, not Merino wool or DK, but I think it will be great to practise with.

CatBastard is definitely an Elder Statescat - and a bit of a grumpy sod with it.

He’s a semi-long haired cat, and I think he’s getting too old to groom himself properly, so his fur is full of matted sections. Every time he comes and sits on me, I brush him and comb him, and work at the matted sections. I’ve had to cut out some especially bad dreads. And I’ve brushed out enough fur to knit a whole new cat.

Sadly he doesn’t appreciate my efforts so I can only do so much before he starts using bad language and threatening to bite me (his bitey-ness is what led to his nickname).

And because he sheds so much, everything I knit has some cat fur in it - a little extra for dear Swashy.

Mine turns 17 in August and this last 12 months he's become a very old grumpy man who goes into a room, forgets why he's there and shouts for me like the house is on fire until I acknowledge him, preferably with dreamies in hand! Rinse and repeat every five minutes.