The Bluestocking Women’s Pub: definitely full of ludicrous halfwits who refuse to get a grip (with unionised gerbils)

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to The Bluestocking: convivial by design, opinionated in the best way, generously stocked with excellent food and drink that complies with whatever it’s meant to comply with, and any calories, gluten or alcohol are entirely virtual.

Staffed by impeccably trained, unfailingly polite gerbils who run a tight bar with plenty of enthusiasm and good intentions. Quick with the drinks, but terrible spillers spellers and liable to turn an idle thought on existential existence into a full blown musical with Busby Berkeley routines. You have been warned.

All women welcome, just in case that isn't obvious. Men can go to The Staunch Ally round the corner.

Previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5477133-the-bluestocking-your-local-womens-pub-warm-friendly-and-not-at-all-unusual-in-any-way

Oh there's a whole plethora of different size screws and hinges amongst other woodworky things in the house, but the timber... That amount was spot on!

I'd currently be screwed if I needed an odd bit of wood for something, if I was lucky there may be an old offcut lurking in the back of the shed, but it would take a week to get to it.

In knitting there is the concept of 'yarn chicken', where you hope that you have just enough yarn to complete your project.

DD played it once and ended up with about a yard left.

You were playing wood chicken, which sounds like a bird - a pheasanty sort of edible one.

Not to detract from Boily’s precise use of wood. The principal difference then being that yarn takes up more space than screws, perhaps. All good crafters/artisans/creators need a ‘float’.

Painters of landscapes wouldn’t be expected to buy only the colours they know they will need for their next work, and get rid of the partly-finished pots and tubes when it’s done, I don’t think.

We agree on this, although I’m sure the ‘Spin a Yarn’ helpline would have better arguments.

Wood chicken is an edible fungus - www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/fungi-and-lichens/chicken-of-the-woods/

You were playing wood chicken, which sounds like a bird - a pheasanty sort of edible one.

Like a wood pigeon?

I hate hate hate playing yarn chicken, so always buy extra yarn just in case.

About the idea of a ‘float.’

Probably 40 years ago a friend of my mother bought a sewing machine. I remember my mother’s amazement that said friend didn’t have any spare fabric in the house to practice on, not even an old tea towel.

My mum had a boarded attic to store things not in use, my dad had the garage.

Not mildly, but wildly, Magpie! I didn't know that.
You're on 🔥tonight with the learning opportunities: Nobel prizes, fungi - I've lots to add to my store of facts thank you

Me too - especially since some yarns suddenly go thick or thin, or with a self-striping one they may be cut & the wrong colour sequence attached to finish the ball, so that even if you've bought enough, you find you actually haven't got enough to finish the project. And then it's always out of stock or discontinued.

I was once talking to a fellow quilter & she said she was cutting strips to put together to make a small quilt, & she'd worked out exactly how much fabric she needed & only bought that amount. I was horrified, & asked what she'd do if she made a mistake. She looked at me coldly & said, "I don't make mistakes." 😬 She was right, she didn't, but she was a horrible woman, so I couldn't admire her for it.

No, Android, I couldn't admire that either.

She would have no flexibility in how to arrange the quilt pieces once she'd actually seen it going together. That may show a lack of creativity. 😉
Perhaps she was following someone else's design scrupulously.

Try as I might I can't stop reading bargerbil in my head as barger Bill, like burglar Bill.

An odd thing:

We live in a small city and occasionally see a fox around. One even came into my living room once last summer when the patio doors were wide open.

My neighbour opposite used to say that the fox tormented her puppy (now grown) by coming to her conservatory and barking at the dog.

The neighbour moved a few months ago but occasionally pops back very briefly to check on the empty house attached to her old one: I have not heard or seen the fox since she moved. There's a new family living in her old house.

Today the neighbour returned and for the first time is sleeping in the empty house. I can now hear a fox barking and barking from that direction. As far as I know the dog is not there, but the fox may think it is and is barking to get its attention.

How does it know?

I have found my people.

I have upstairs crochet and downstairs crochet (or knitting) and car crochet (because I can’t knit in the car).

easy knitting and crochet is for boring meetings and tv watching and then there’s knitting and crochet that need to concentrate on.

Yes, exactly, @Taztoy.

Knitting when I can concentrate, knitting for online knitting group meetings (when I can look at it), knitting for more formal online meetings (when I can't look at it), knitting when watching TV in another language when I need to read the subtitles...

How some people manage with one project on the needles at once I can't imagine.

Mind, there are some people in my online knitting groups who can knit complicated lace patterns and join in the conversation at the same time. There's occasional film of knitters in the Scottish islands doing the same. I can't.

I can’t either @AsWithGlad

my granny used to knit complicated cables in an Aran pattern and chat away and watch television (Emmerdale Farm as it was then). I need to concentrate.

she knitted and crocheted right up to she was in hospital in her mid 80s.

I usually have a small project and a big project going at the same time - socks and a sweater, for example. One can easily be taken on trips.

As you can see by the time stamp, thr sleep gerbils gave way to thr snore gerbils.

At 1.45 a.m.

Couple of massive snores from DH, Edith wide awake for bloody hours.

Now to put down phone and try again.

The just in case yarn is crucial.

A few years ago I used up my whole stash on a giant blanket for my bed, half trebles with my biggest hook & usually 3 yarns on the hook at a time. I might be getting to the stage where I could make another one, then I could alternate them.

I have some tinsel yarn because an earlier owner found it horrible to use, and discovered that it is the PERFECT stuff to transform ones ordinary jumpers (coats, gilets etc etc) into festive Christmas garments by basting it loosely around the edges.

Look mammy, that odd old lady looks like a Christmas tree

ssssh, she'll hear you

Just don’t wear a hat with a fairy on it at the same time.

(as if. I’m sure you’d go for a star)

What a good idea!

" That's a nice walnut cake. I'll have that"

Hmm, so discovering that ‘sort of doubling the stitches doesn’t quite work, so am re-writing the patterns for ‘larger’ squares. Finding that, intellectually, quite stimulating.

DH OTOH is revealing that he is a proper bloke. Head in hands at the yarn explosion and the [apparent] personal trauma of spending 4+months watching me panic that I wouldn’t get previous one finished in time, and my reckless promise to make one for DS, he has now suggested I fake it… apparently I should just be able to start knitting ‘something’ and then buy a fully knitted, mass manufactured one and substitute it. Ideally without the Tommy Hilfiger or relevant designer label on it.

The man has NO SOUL!!!

Or any understanding that it’s about doing something nice for my 6ft4 baby. We have, well, loadsamoney. Of course I could just BUY him a knitted throw… but the POINT was to make something unique that is impregnated with mummy’s tears of frustration, sweat, love and a shed-load of doghairs.

May have to get my ducks in a row. AIBU to see a solicitor?!!

Actually i think I’ll just buy more yarn…

Is it possible that your DH is secretly jealous you’re not making a blanket for him? Or traumatised that nobody made him a college blanket?

LOL. His mum did knit baby clothes for my two when newborns (I kept them, which I bet she may not realise 🥰) but I doubt she did anything as stooopid as starting a blanket.

He has even suggested borrowing or hiring a knitting machine - am shocked I tell ya!!

😱😱😱

I have found a good use for extra stash from baby blankets - where there’s already at least one child in the family, anyway.

I made a blanket for my cousin who was having her second, & she said her toddler kept nicking it for her doll, so I used the leftovers from the first blanket to create a mini version & now apparently baby & doll get wrapped up together in their matching blankets 😀.