The Bluestocking Women's Pub: Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs

[AngleofRepose]

Croeso/Welcome to the Bluestocking Women's Pub, with our lovely gerbil staff, the icy Mojito foot-bath for those of you fed up with the heat, a Quilting/Craft Nook, lots of yummy food and drink with zero calories, gluten, or allergens, the Gerbil World Cup, and a brand new magic pool that becomes a babbling brook whenever you want it to!

Come on in! All women welcome! (Men welcome at The Staunch Ally pub down the road aways)

(security provided by the capybaras, lovely folk, but try not to get in their way)

(oh, and don't mention triangles, please. Gubbins gets very overexcited)

(did we mention the Gerbil World Cup?)

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the centipedes are venomous! At least, I don't think they are! I just had always lived in older houses in the US, and they were everywhere <shudders> Even just typing this makes my skin crawl 😬

The snake thing I entirely understand. If I'd grown up in the Southwest (US), I'd probably have the same fear innate in me as well!

ps. if you haven't seen the centipedes in Maine, then you are one lucky cookie! (and I've lived in eighteenth-century houses in New England where all the crickets came up from the cellar at night in the summer - through the cracks in the floorboards- and that didn't faze me in the least.)These centipedes are Something Else Entirely.

I’m mightily relieved to hear about non-venomous centipedes but in fact I have never seen one here. Perhaps our winters are too cold?

Edith, what kind of snake was it?

I dread to think what these centipedes are like and AM NOT GOING TO GOOGLE IT as I currently find them quite cute (as bugs and beasties go)

Don't. They are not cute.

NOT CUTE. 😩

I’ve been making progress with my blackwork embroidery - though I do seem to be doing a lot of miscounting, muttering, ripping back and redoing.

Beautiful work @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius ! I have a blackwork piece I made years ago and keep mislaying as I have never got around to having it framed. Must do that...

Thank you @Chickadeeinme.

Actually I have a poem that includes Spanish blackwork (in my first book):

Cross stitch

I sew His Majesty a shirt
in Spanish blackwork. Round his neck
six Granadan pomegranates
for children that I bore him.
I bore him, that’s the truth, and have
no son. The ladies of the court
dance lightly , but I am weighed down:
one daughter; five empty cradles.

I focus on the point, am still
the Queen. The black silk follows
my command; I set my stitches,
pray His Majesty will know
his duty to his wife as well
as God. I sew crosses, count threads
religiously. Mistress Boleyn
has a dark and knowing eye.

I choose what I believe and say
nothing; I am not as simple
as I seem. The silk follows
the needle’s eye; my eye follows
the familiar patterns.
The ladies of the court will hunt
the hart. Noli me tangere.
I stitch another cross, and wait

ok, so I did a text-based search with no pictures (phew). Yes,it seems that Maine would be too cold for them to survive, although Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where I experienced them, also have very cold winters.

They seem to have originated in the Med. How they got to the US, I don't know, but I didn't want to scroll down the page... But here's the really interesting part. They need humidity, they need houses, and they are absolutely rife in the Mid-Atlantic States, NY ( not upstate), and west out to Ohio. Then, also rife in the Deep South.

They don't like New England.

I have relatives in the Deep South, where we used to spend vacations, when we weren't on the farm in Maine. I also went to university in the Mid-Atlantic area, and lived in NY state for a time.

.... does this all mean that I brought them into my apartment??!!! And subsequent homes?

I am horrified!

Absolutely stunning!! Oh, my, and the patience to do that!

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius Woley, do you you count threads, or follow a pattern? Just wondering how you get it so precise.

@AngleofRepose when I did it, you really had to count threads very accurately or the pattern goes awry.

@Chickadeeinme @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius Is an embroidery needle or a normal needle? I would assume embroidery, so you don't split the threads?

Love the poem!

Beautiful embroidery, @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius
And a stunning poem, @Chickadeeinme

Angle, I think it was a house snake of some sort, not venomous - it was a long time ago, I was very young and very scared, as I had been reared to be bloody terrified of snakes and to keep as much space as possible between me and them. And no wonder - a quick google tells me that Country 1 had 20 varieties of venomous snake, and Country 2 about half a dozen. and we regualrly visisted Country 3 which, like Country1, had about 20.

I saw at least one highly venomous snake as a child, and the snake-terror-training kicked in, so I ran off and told a grown-up rather than going in for a closer look (like I did with scorpions, frogs etc).

This was all decades ago, when there was a lot more wildlife in those places than there is now, including more snakes.

I'm now entirely blasé about grass snakes and slow worms, but I avoid places where adders are likely to be out and about. Partly worry about B&B, partly... nah, no thanx. Even though they are puny compared the snakes of my childhood.

House snakes. House centipedes. Weren't we special! 😃Builds character, I suppose. 🙄

Gerbils, a milky hot chocolate for the road, please. I'm off to bed for hopefully dreams about blackwork and poetry, and not ... the other thing.

Goodnight, all! 🌙

Afaik the only invertebrates you’re likely to see in or around the Bluestocking are beetles, butterflies and (well behaved) bees. The grounds may have ecological richness but it stays out of our metaphorical and literal hair.

Definitely!
I was quite robust by the time I was 10.

There was a thread on here a while back about Boots not selling some ointment as it was for a man, and it became a thread about someone's pet centipede/millipede who also needed the ointment for some reason. I couldn't decide if the pet was cute or terrifying

@AngleofRepose wrote “I'd love to see what you do with the jacket- perhaps we can compare notes at some point after the winter!”

Which winter? 😀

Alternative plans
Appliqué Tana Lawn shapes or panels onto it.
Sew some Jess de Wahls embroidered flowers on it, hiding the one pictured among them.
Get out my very old embroidery machine and do some embroidery directly on it.
Machine embroider on the Tana Lawn and then sew it on in panels.
Do machine embroidery which includes appliquéd Tana Lawn shapes.
(I have almost all the bits necessary to do this)

So many ideas, so little energy.

I have ideas about Sashiko. A friend, who has done some, suggests I get a template and draw through it in white pencil as a guide, but I don’t think my stitches would be even enough. I thought you could buy water-soluble fabric with the Sashiko design printed on to sew through, but I can’t find any. The last is to use waste canvas - I did this years ago with cross stitch. You tack the canvas to your garment and embroider through the holes, as you would for cross stitch. Wet it when you’re finished and pull the canvas threads out, leaving just your embroidery.

If I had one idea I might have carried it out by now, instead I just think and plan.

On reflection, why stick to just one idea?!

I see you are off to bed, Angle. Sleep well, and dream lovely dreams.

I popped in to catch up and wish everyone a good night, but now I've got images of spiders and bees in beds and I suddenly don't feel sleepy any more😬
So I'll post my most comforting night-time image, and try not to think about creepy crawlies
g'night all🌛

That’s a calming, restful image, Marie. Sleep well.

I have found water soluble fabric with Sashiko designs printed in it. 😀