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

LTB. NOW.

That’s such a good idea!!

Anyone want to talk patchwork?

That’s so lovely 🥰

My DD loved her baby blanket. It already fell to pieces by the time she was 6, so I ordered an identical replacement and pretended I had sent it to the blanket fairies to repair (both versions had tiny pearls sewn in which I had to carefully remove each time - who puts fricking pearls on a baby blanket FGS?). When no 2 became a laddered, greying mass of threads by the time she was 13, it had to go properly. She has always loved the texture and weight of textiles/knits so it was a pleasure to make her a grown up comfort blanket. Am touched that DS wants one, if I am honest.

Yes! I have been saving the larger panels DH’s shirts for years, so that I can turn the fabric into a bed spread for DS. Can do the patchwork bit, but want to learn who to line and then ‘quilt’ them afterwards?

I love this. I want to learn to sew but I’m accident prone and scared I’d sew my finger 🤣🤣🤣🤣

That’s gorgeous.

Morning all. The thought for today chez Magpie is "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes". Colleagues are doing the former, and are about to receive the latter.
Love the patchwork, Fuzzy!

Fuzzy, did you do that patchwork? it's fantastic! Or is it an illustration of what you'd like to do?

You are all very gifted needlewomen, I'm impressed.
I have knitted a few perfectly respectable, very plain scarves, but that's my limit, so I admire your expertise.

Your granny's ability to knit without losing concentration on other things, Taz, reminded me of a key moment in my gender 'journey' [bet you weren't expecting that!]
I was a tomboy, if gender dysphoria exists, I had it. I always hung out with my father and uncles, had little time for my female relatives - though deep down loved them to bits of course - it was all cars and sports and blokey stuff.

The when I was about 13 or 14 one of my uncles who was doing an evening class complained about the silly women in the class who weren't listening to the teacher at all, they were knitting all the time, silly girls -
and without thinking I said 'No they're not silly, it's just that they can do two things at once, they're using different parts of their brains, the knitting isn't taking up the learning part'.
Silence. I can still see their faces. Shock that 'one of the gang' had declined to join in the 'Women, eh?' bantz. It was never the same after that.

That's when I started to identify with women, and appreciate their cleverness, and stand up for them.
I haven't stopped since!

So clever knitting women have an iconic place in my life

I do remember the needle going through by finger/nail when I was a teenager. But it was using an old manually operated SInger machine and I was definitely pratting about. Modern machines are really safe.

My local arts centre does beginners classes and, surprisingly, it seems to have a really broad range of age groups - teens to oldies.

@MarieDeGournay love that story. Not sure if it’s my ADHD but I cannot ‘just sit’ or watch TV without having something to do with my hands, so have always knit/cross-stitched. I like the idea that it’s less about ND and more about my womanly cleverness. 🥰

And as an aside, I think it’s been growing up, life experience, and observing these differences that has made my DD realise that actually is a woman, too.

Thank you Cautious.

It's lovely to think that you can see the same process with your DD.

It's important to note that although I had that moment of clarity that I was one of those 'silly women', and accepted that that I was growing up to be a woman whether or not I wanted to, I still kept my not-conforming-to-stereotypes style into adulthood, it's not like I suddenly became girly, I just became a woman.

I hope your DD feels the same: she is realising she is a woman, but she can be her own kind of woman, a DD kind of woman, whatever she wants that to be

Yes, that cushion was one of my lockdown projects. I did three, a blue coastal.one, a turquoise one and that one, which was intended to have the randomness of a flower meadow.

For those worried about stitching fingers, it's all hand sewn. It's "paper patchwork" so the pieces are tacked round paper pieces, then oversewn together. Sounds far more complicated than it is and is one of those things you can do while watching TV.

I bought a bag of Liberty tana lawn offcuts for this- perfect weight and sooo pretty!

Marie I love that story.

I hope your DD feels the same: she is realising she is a woman, but she can be her own kind of woman, a DD kind of woman, whatever she wants that to be

Yes. So often the story seems to go ‘my DD thought she was NB / trans & now she’s super-girly.’

There need to be more ‘…& now she’s realised that she can be a woman just as she is.’

I love this

So, after all the angst of last year's Thing, with a new bank holiday, refreshments in a hall strewn with scraps from rushworking activities, a holy well, lots of mud, and a multipiece woollen construction, we're doing it again.

Some people (ie me) won't learn.

The mwc had been on a sojourn in a display area, and when we went to move it the manager (who has been a pita since schooldays half a century ago) told us very firmly that she no longer had space for it, which caused brief panic, allayed half an hour later when when the principal of a primary school that is taking it overnight said how much she would like to be able to have it for a longer stay.

People, huh?

Gorgeous! I thought I recognised Liberty there. It's so perfect, Fuzzy - the design, the piecing (so many points meeting!) & the colour placement.

Thank you android 😊

It is exquisite. Crafts club has several quilters but most of them use sewing machines and imo their quilts don't have the delicacy and liveliness of hand sewn work.

You can also crochet it very loosely into fatter tinsel & drape it about yourself or the house: one year I made long bits for the house & various short bits for hair ties or to be draped round the neck as soft necklaces/scarves. Maybe now I'm back into knitting I should try knitting some & see what happens. It should be easier to knit (stitches on needle) than to crochet (stitches lost in tinselly strands, need to work by stealthy touch). Hmm. Project #429 beckons...

PS Deano, what on earth was that last post about? Is it in code to fool the linguistickers, or did I miss something?

what on earth was that last post about?

We have a new Bank holiday, linked to a very important woman of early medieval Ireland, famous for things including leadership, power, a magical cloak and rush crosses.

There is a holy well dedicated to her near craft club base, and we are using that as an excuse for a get-together where we can drink tea and show off our skills and make a slightly soggy pilgrimage. Weather permitting.

@MarieDeGournay thank you - I wish you were someone my DD could bump into in real life.

I never really thought I modeled any particular form of femininity. Even with my love of textiles, music, arts etc DH and I have shared jobs around the house and I’ve only worn skirts/dresses a dozen times in as many years. It’s funny that with all the access to SM YP are seeing an ever decreasing range of ‘what being a woman’ - or indeed a man - can mean, if it means anything at all.

I feel sad that this generation did not grow up with the likes of Annie Lennox and Grace Jones and Boy George in his pre-abusive/criminal days. I remember strong mothers/women being foregrounded in film: Sigourney Weaver in Alien (the ultimate film dissertation of what it is to be a mother 🤣), Linda Hamilton in Terminator - women who didn’t perform outdated stereotypes of femininity even while fighting selflessly for the children in their care, showing utter dedication, fierce love whilst rocking their machine guns and ammo belts.

I don’t know how we went from the discussions and exploration of ‘gender’ that I thought these icons had opened the doors to for my generation to what they have today.

Last night DH and I were watching A House Through Time, looking at an apartment block in London and another in Berlin. It heavily featured the most incredibly resilient women who secretly fought behind the scenes in WW2 in secret government projects and in saving their children Germany. Why is the bravery, the risks that these women took, still so very little featured in our understanding of contemporary history?

I love this.

Sorry - that was probably a bit heavy… but am going to see if I can find history books of female spies/resilience fighter from WW2 now.