Saturday, January 30, 2010

Begorrah! It's a Leprechaun

It’s not every day that a leprechaun comes to live with you.
This one landed shortly before the Christmas holidays.
Introducing Ciarrán!

His name is Ciarrán (pronounced /key-ran’/) and he’s no trifling sprite.

One of a series of emissaries from the Emerald Isle, this pint-sized ambassador was hand-picked out of seven applicants to supervise the lace making endeavors of IsDihara.

“Receiving one is like hitting the jack pot o’ gold,” she said.

Ciarrán at teatime with new pals.

Seven leprechauns were dispatched around the globe in 2009. Each one arrived with a tatted sash, a skein of hand-dyed thread draped over his shoulder and an Irish coin in his grasp.

Judging from the twinkle in Ciarrán’s eye, the clever leprechaun no doubt has a few roguish pranks up his sleeve and has wasted no time shaking things up around his new household.

Ciarrán riding bareback

After spying a Christmas crèche, he leaped onto the back of a wise man's camel with an exuberant, "Chugainn, ar aghaidh linn," (Gaelic for Let's go!) and rode it around the house.

Ciarrán keeps mum about his crock of gold but waxes lyrical about the superiority of all things Irish. And make no mistake, he loves the attention he has received since his arrival.

When asked how Ciarrán came to live with her, IsDihara replied, “At the end of December a package arrived in the mail. I opened it to find a tantalizing, silver-wrapped gift that gave off a barely perceptible hiccup.”

Startled, she tore open the wrapping. Out sprang an antsy little elf, saying, “Where’s the loo?”

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Lorcan








Hello,  My name is Lorcan and  I have been sent to live with Wendy in England.  Here in Kent at the moment it is very cold and snowy.   I tried sitting in the garden to get some sun, but as you can imagine I didn't stay long!


Here I am in the study, sitting on Wendy's desk.  I am going to help her with her designing and tatting and will post again soon.  I am very happy here and am well looked after.  It is nice to see Oisin and Fergal again and keep in touch with my roots.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Leprechaun Lightening strikes twice

LOOK!!!! Our eyes match!!!


Oh my goodness....OH MY GOODNESS, I cannot contain my excitement! A very unexpected but well received surprise arrived in my mailbox today courtesy of my friend and fellow tatter Tatskool -"Grande Dame" of all tatting leprechauns around the world!!!


...Let's back up a little: about this time last year my beloved "Brendan the Navigator" came to live with me. But his adventurous nature got the best of him and after a few months he decided to up and travel the world on his own...independent little chap that he is; we parted ways in Vietnam. I have missed him quite a bit but I have heard news here and there "through the grapevine" of his travels.

Well.....today Brendan's sister Blathnaid (or Brenda for short) has come to stay! I am ever so excited. ...and boy oh boy is she a pretty lass! You lot out there who have boy Leps better keep an eye on them once they get a look at her!
She is settling in quite nicely, after all Brendan has already filled her in on what to expect with the motley crew that I call my family.


Just look at how ladylike she is with her pretty earrings, flowered belt and little gems on her shoes! By the way; Blathnaid means "flowers". Isn't that lovely??


I also got a skein of "Vanilla Sky" which is one of Tatskool's HDT's that I was secretly drooling over the first time I saw it....so Brenda "the stay at home" and I are off to tat with it right now!

...Oh and thank you for letting me open my Christmas present early! You have made my day!
Now that I have the luck of the irish on my side again, I am hoping that 2010 will be a fantastic year!

And then there were THREE!

What should the postman bring to my house when things got back to normal...but a little packet. Inside was a very, very cold little Leprechaun who had been on his way since the 14th of December...thats 3 whole weeks.
Yes folks! he had missed Christmas!!
Aw!
He was so cold that he just lay there in the pretty green tissue paper...looking up at me with his big blue eyes.
Finally
He hopped out of the wrapping and demanded to talk to Fergeal...without so much as a by-your-leave.

Now Fergeal and Tadgh were still trying to get a glimpse of Blathnaid and had been on duty watch by my computer ever since!!
They were taken aback when the newcomer rushed in and announced that he was moving in!!



'I'm HERE' he said,
Tadgh hopped down from Fergeal's shoulders and they were soon deep in conversation, plotting heaven knows what!!



My goodness he is one determined little Leprechaun, just look at the three of them. Poor little Tadgh had never seen anything like him. ' Look at his chin' he squealed, 'look at his big eyes!!' Fergeal took it all in his stride.
Finally I got a chance to read the long letter sent with him and found that his name is Nollaig....that's Irish for Christmas...cool name! Ironic as he had just missed Christmas.

Now we need a bit of history here I think.

Last  Christmas if you will cast your minds back, several little leprechauns set off for foreign parts.
Well unbeknown to us here at Tatskool Leprechaun Lodge....there was someone out there who was sooooh desperate to have a Leprechaun that she went and TATTED one....yes you did read that correctly.......she tatted her own from scratch...having only seen photos of them.

Now that I see one in real life...so to speak...I am amazed at how she got the height right...and the colours and the shoes...and Oh My Gosh the ears are just wonderful.  And of course she could give him that wonderful pointy chin that is so leprechaunish. Of course he is a lot older (in more ways that one) than my fresh faced little scallywags!

That's why we will have to keep an eye on him!!

Now we have learned later that it seems that his maker mum was busy attending to him at the very same time that here Fergeal was doing his interviews....now isn't that amazing....and neither knew what the other was planning.

I fact we have learned that when battatter...who is in fact his mum....went to the post to send him on his way to Ireland....(let's face it where he really belongs!!)........she was amazed to find on her return home that very moment...that in her letterbox was a packet for her with Ruari/Rory inside.

I just bet she was staggered!

At this point in time when Nollaig left home, don't forget Conor (the tatted lep) had not seen Rory (a real lep), Tadgh had not seen Conor (a tatted lep), Fergeal had not decided to take on an apprentice.....and none of them had ever seen a purple cow..oh no that's another story altogether! sorrry.

Are you still with me????

So they all clambered up to get a look at the photo that I showed them on my screen from battatter of Conor and Rory. Conor trying his best to take the Rainbow Bright from the userper (or so he thought)!
.


You can all imagine the thoughts that are going through my mind now that there are THREE of them!

Oh by the way, I hope that all the other lep mums will copy and paste their stories into this blog so that these wonderful stories can lie one after another for all the leps to be able to read for eternity what their siblings/cousins have been getting up to!!

BTW Nollaig is carrying a lucky Escudo...where did he find that, the boys are curious.