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

@ErrolTheDragon In my experience, verbena bonariensis can germinate anywhere and everywhere. I used to volunteer in a National Trust garden before my knees became a problem and we planted VB to "fill in the gaps" in the new rose garden, to give the roses time to bush out. We then spent the next 5 years trying to keep the VB under control while they self-seeded everywhere, but eventually had to give up and take them out. Even then, every time we dug one up, another would appear from nowhere. I hope you have plenty of room for them. 😬

Mine have never self seeded, and rarely survive over the winter ( I probably should dig some out and keep under cover).

My VBs are fairly well behaved. Although the original died off last year, leaving offspring in the Olive tree and agapanthus pots, and one tidily in the corner of the paving.

They did die off over the winter, but came up again each spring - and not where they had originally been planted. It may have been because we were mulching and manuring the rose beds over the first few years and the soil was well fertilised.

Good idea @EmpressaurusKitty I'll go look at the litter threads.
I've wondered that @FuzzyPuffling but don't see any other signs.
I'll try a t shirt of mine in her bed tonight @MarieDeGournay - thanks.

I suppose I should not complain about noisy foxes, but I am a quiet fox and don't work the night shift. If I'm going to be woken in the small hours by a horny vixen yowling... well, there are plenty of males in the area who are obviously slacking off.

Or, judging by the size of one male I sometimes see, they are more tempted by what Colonel Sanders has to offer.

Now that's interesting. I'll have a think.

Sorry to hear that. I'm hoping it's not that yet with our cat but goodness knows.

My girlcat (aged 11.5) sleeps with me every night, either on top of the bed, or under the duvet when she gets chilly. Always my side, never DHs, and if I ever go to the spare room, she'll come and find me there.

She's my velcro cat- apparently it's due to a poor kittenhood, which she certainly had. (Born under a shed, not socialised to humans at the right age, very timid).

But she loves me! And I love her.

You are the chosen one @FuzzyPuffling !

Boycat has chosen DH though, so it's fair!

Thank you, Fuzzy! I'm just catching up...

T shirt is a good option.

I once had a jumper that I loved, but it was getting a bit worn out with old age, and it didn't fit me any more, so it ended up in boycat's bed. He seemed to like the smell of it.

@FuzzyPuffling Love the indigo & Vanaspati fabrics. What are delivery costs like? (Asking for a friend...)

Delivery costs no worse than UK ones.

DH had a hospital letter which took 10 days to arrive (Royal Mail) from 2 miles away: my fabric got all the way from India in 5 days (dpd)

Thank you. I should probably explain. Unpicking is undoing a stitch at a time. Slow.

Ripping is when you take it off the needles and pull (rip) the yarn out of the knitting and then reinsert the needle into each stitch. Also called frogging because "rip it, rip it" sounds like ribbit, ribbit.

The problem I have is that when I try and pick up stitches by inserting my needle into the open stitch, I frequently pull it in such a way that the stitch disappears and I'm left with a wide strand of yarn and the stitch has dropped and I find that hard to fix.

I put away the striped baby jacket and started on the striped baby hat. But I managed to knit it the wrong way. This is easily done. Pick up the knitting and start knitting in the opposite direction - I'm knitting on circular needles. So it suddenly looked like I had knitted it inside out. And I hadn't noticed for ages.

I sewed a thread in so I could rip it back to the right row. (Use a needle to run a thread through a row. When it's ripped it stops at that row).

But then I dropped so many stitches. So I ripped it back to the beginning and I've knitted about 12 rows.

...

But
...

tomorrow is the day before our legal wedding anniversary so we will be day drinking. No knitting involved.

Hopefully the break will do me good.

I didn't actually explain my original post, sorry.

I am trying to knit a sleeve in the round.

You can knit on straight needles, which means knitting a row then turning the knitting round and starting again. But you can also knit on circular needles which have a flexible cable between them rather than a steel rod. This means you don't turn the knitting and and start again at each row, you just keep going. You need a stitch marker (a round bit of plastic on the needle to mark where the "row" begins. But it means you can knit circular things (hats, sleeves, jumpers) in one piece. This is great because you then don't have to sew the edges together.

I ripped it once

Explained above.

because there was a massive hole in the underarm

I'll get back to this.

because the pattern said "knit in the round according to my tips" which did not mention picking up armhole stitches.

When I started knitting the cardigan, the pattern started at the collar at the top and worked down. For every technique she provided a link to her website tips to show how to do it.

I had to use the needles to move some stitches to a holding cable which keeps the stitches separate from the main knitting. Once I got to the bottom of the cardigan, I then returned to knit the sleeves on the circular needles but even though there were loads of links to her website on the pattern, I couldn't find the tips to explain how to knit the sleeves. I just knitted the stitches I had moved away. This left a big hole underneath the sleeve (imagine a cardigan with a sleeve and a hole from the armpit to halfway down the side) and I thought there must be a better way to do it.

I searched the internet to see what I should do and the very same woman's video for knitting sleeves in the round was the top result. She could have put in a link!

So I knew the hole was a problem but searched her website for instructions and couldn't find it. So I did a general internet search and was presented with a video from the woman who wrote the pattern. Annoying.

Then I managed to catch one of the working yarns (it's a stripy pattern) under a stitch and had to rip it back again.

So I was changing colour every two rows to make stripes and sometimes the yarn gets tangled. But it's never been a problem because I just stop and untangle it. Even though it can take ages. But I don't mind that. What I hadn't realised was I had knitted the other colour into the pattern by accidentally catching the thread in a stitch when I knitted it.

And if there's an easy way to sort that out, I don't know it. So I had to unpick it.

Ouch! That's frustrating, @MyrtleLion.

My mum used to knit socks in the round. Unfortunately, I wasn't taught how. Keep meaning to pick up a book and teach myself.

YouTube is your friend.

But for those of us who don't like a video, this is my favourite website explaining the magic loop method. It tells you how in words and pictures that don't move. https://nimble-needles.com/tutorials/the-magic-loop-method-knitting-in-the-round-the-easy-way/

Thank you! I think that I cope better with still pictures. :)

You are noble to knit in the round @MyrtleLion . I prefer to seam. If absolutely necessary I’ll use Addi Crasys (small circumference knitting) or magic loop (larger). The Crasys are quite expensive, especially since I already have a lot of circulars which I use to knit shawls when there are too many stitches for straight needles.

I cannot get on with double pointed needles. Do not recommend.

There are project knitters (who want the finished item) and process knitters (who value the process over the end result). I am the latter, which is why I have lots of shawls and rarely wear them.

Those Addi Crasys needles are so cute!

I find knitting in the round very easy. But when I use the magic loop method I tend to have gaps. I have devised my own method where I don't turn the work, I just shuffle all the stitches down the right needle and cable and knit the left stitches. When they run out, I just shuffle the stitches round on to the left needle and knit again.

I'm definitely mostly a project knitter, and the magic loop method 😱I'll stick to dpns.

I tend to learn a new technique not for the fun of learning it, but to let me make whatever it is I want to make. SSK and kitchener to make socks, for example. Still can't do kitchener without regularly referring to the instructions, though, despite having made quite a few pairs of socks.

I'm very impressed at your new skills, Magpie. It took me bloody years to get that far!

I'm a process crocheter (that doesn't look right). I do it for physical therapy and mental distraction.

I remember my granny and aunties knitting socks for us, four shiny metal needles, and really complicated carry-on to turn the heel which I never managed to learn

I've just realised that my mother is absent from the list of knitters - she wasn't into knitting/sewing/baking at all, she preferred the garden, and fed us competently cooked, acceptable but simple meals= as little time indoors as she could get away with