Brendan stopped in for a visit! Whoo hoo!

I forgot to share that Brendan made a brief appearance at Shuttlebirds. I was so relieved to see him. My heart was absolutely broken when I thought I had lost him forever. I apologized for the mix up in Vietnam, he said it was quite alright as he was thinking of going off to explore on his own anyway. I asked "B" if he was ready to come home, but when he heard that I was homeless and wandering around for the summer, he decided to continue his explorations. Well, that IS what navigators/voyagers do best. As a leprechaun mother I am sad not to have him for the summer. But I cannot begrudge him his heart's desire. I am hoping that he will decide to join us in Alaska. I am even prepared to make him mittens and a nice warm jacket.
He was hopping around my Shuttlebirds slide show 2 posts back. If you would like to see Brendan for yourself, go see if you can find him.

If any of you see Brendan out there on one of his journeys do please let me know! I think he is off to visit his Lep cousins but who knows? He is extremely resourceful and moves around rather quickly. My guess is he will be haunting tatting events and the like. He is a tatting leprechaun after all.

B gave me this photo of himself while we visited together at Shuttlebirds:

Getting Ready to Travel

Danny is excited about his upcoming trip to New York. He wonders if any of his cousins will be there.

William Found What He Was Looking For

William is back from his trip. He was away for a few days. He realized it was almost St. Patrick's Day and he couldn't find his pot of gold. He looked everywhere for it and it was no where to be found. So he took off and was chasing down all the rainbows he could find. We had one over our garage ......

He ran outside and went to the end of the rainbow, but there was no pot of gold.

So he went to the other end of the rainbow. Still no pot of gold :(

But he was not going to give up. He found another rainbow and went to the end of this rainbow and he found what he was looking for, his pot of gold.......

Here is a closer view of William's Pot of Gold.

William hopes everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day!!

(For the pot I used Jane Eborall's Basket pattern, minus the handle. I love this little tatted basket.)

I also wanted to share a picture of William laying around in a field of Shamrocks. William got into my tatting again and took all my tatted Shamrocks and layed down in the middle of them all. LOL!

Lace Day in Lafayette is LOVELY

Sorry for the long post, but whew! Where to begin. I had such a great time, I guess I will start there.

I took Conor with me to his first Lace Day..(here he is held by his newest friend..Laura.)

I arrived around 10, and was met in the parking lot by Mary Harris, asking if I needed help. Such a nice lady. I didn't but it was sweet of her to ask. Then, I went inside, and was quickly greeted by Laura Bobay, Ladytatterly, and Gina Brummett, Tattinggoddess! They are great ladies, and always a lot of fun to be with. Laura intoduced me to her "newbie" tatters, or her Tatter Tots, as she calls them. Kaye, Chris, and Dee.(I think her name is Chris, if not, Laura, please correct me!). Laura gave me the coolest gourds she had brought, and had made the cutest hedgehog out of one. His name is Hector! Isn't he precious?

Well, to make an incredibly long and lovely story short, we mingled, met new friends, and older ones. Diane, the Lace Lovin Librarian was there. She is such a sweet lady. I met her at the last Lace Day, two years ago. Great to see her again. She told me that she had made one of the raffle prizes that I won.

Did I say raffle PRIZES? Oh, yes. I won 5 of the raffle items! Wow! I couldn't believe it! Having brought Conor with me is the only reason I can think of that I got so lucky. My little Leprechaun brought his mommy the luck of the Irish! Here he is with Mary Harris, one of his new friends.

Here is also Gina, tatting away, in her oh- so- scarce spare time.

Here is a photo of all the items I won. I won a stack of Sewing and Threads magazines, in the first set of raffles. I don't sew, but my Mom and Sister will have a lot of fun reading them.

Then came the second round of raffles... omg! I won the beautiful beaded amulet bag that Gina made. So pretty! I thought, cool, I can go home very happy to have won something so great. But then, I won the bag from Diane, too! A lovely bag, it was woven on her Weavette loom and the handle is Romanian point lace braid, a very pretty pattern on it, and it had the green snowflake like motif and bookmark she tatted inside! PLUS, a gorgeous hankie. I was feeling REALLY lucky now. A couple of other ladies won the next two raffles, and then, I won the Cattern Cakes and Lace book raffle and the Honiton Lace book, spool holder, and thread raffle. WOW, again, I was in shock at my luck. I know I had only put one ticket in for the Honiton book..

I had brought this for show and tell. I was showered with such compliments, I am STILL blushing! Everyone was asking how I made them, and how long it took and such, I felt like a celebrity! heehee.

Here are a few other photos I took. This is the showroom..I made a panoramic picture of it so you could see the whole thing at one glance!

Another panorama of the meeting room... The Lace display, Things to put things in...oh such lovely stuff here!
Someone, I think it was Charlotte?, brought in this sweeter than sweet Greyhound. I HAD to pet him..Laura reminded me I couldn't have him.. thanks Laura..

But, being the dog lover I am, I was so happy to see him. This is Charlotte with him. Betty is behind him giving him a hug.

I think I will stop here. I may have some other photos in my other camera, I will check later, but, you can tell by the LONG post, Conor and I had a fabulous time. I hope you enjoyed my blog about the day!

Conor in the clover

Conor had fun on his first St Patrick's day... as you can see, he found some clover to roll in! He thinks they are shamrocks, well, it is pretty close for him! He hopes all his Leprechaun cousins, and everyone else too, has a wonderful Saint Patrick's Day!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Danny

It's going to be a quiet St. Patrick's Day at Danny's house since Mom's post-op meds don't mix with alcohol. A mug or two of brew would have been nice....

Danny, being a good natured sort, resigns himself to another day of drinking tea.

Oisin's first American St. Patrick's Day

 

 

 

 

Birmingham has a well respected St. Patrick's Day Parade and Oisin was very set on being the Grand Marshall. However, Lala just wasn't able to take him. When I explained how bad I felt, he capitulated. Or maybe it was because he is so small and I told him he would probably be trampled!

As you can see, we had our own little parade. My collection of St. Patrick's Day bears were enough parade for him to lead and as usual he has Isaac wrapped around his little finger.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all!

Bendan gets in touch!

Whoooooohoooooo!!!
Fergal got news from Brendan today....they seem to have been in touch by leprechaun telepathy for a while!! Fergal had kept telling me not to worry and I have tried to say the same to his mum.

Anyway today Brendan managed to send some photos to Fergal through his lep-phone which fortunately he says he held on to tightly when he took his tumble from his mum's bike.

He says to tell her that he didn't mean to run away...honest..it was an accident.
He set off to walk back to Korea but he got lost and was picked up by some nice people who were on holiday and he has been traveling with them ever since. He hopes that he is getting nearer home...but geography was never his strong point...but he is sure that he can make it back some day.

At the moment he is staying in a posh hotel overlooking the sea and is happy to be seeing so many places...but he does miss his mum. He can't get in touch with her directly as his lep-phone only works to other leps.





He says to tell her not to worry..he thinks she will be going somewhere nice soon and wishes her a happy St Patrick's day and the same to all his other lep siblings and cousin.

If anyone can tell Fergal where they think Brendan is Fergal would feel happier.

Its on it's way!

Rebel and Conor decided to take a couple of St. Patrick's Day photos to share with everyone! In the first one, Rebel was a bit upset when he misunderstood Conor saying a pot of gold. Poor pup.

In the second one though, he was much happer and wanting to give kisses.

In this one, they were at the top of their voices singing.. When Irish Eyes are Smilin'! A good time had by all until they were too tired to sing and dance anymore!

(((Oh Bring back my Brendan to me, to me)))

Brendan "The Voyager" and infamous tatting leprechaun was last seen in Phu Quoc (an island off of Vietnam). Any information leading to his whereabouts will be greatly rewarded. Although we think he may be exploring Asia he is clever and resourceful enough to be anywhere in the world by now. He mentioned something about New Zealand a few days before his mysterious disappearance.

I miss him desperately.....

Cormac has been pestering me to share our visit with Carol and Conor last weekend so here we are finally!


We met at Pepé's in Frankfort,IN for lunch. Introductions were made all around and we're all sitting here chatting, with the boys getting to know one another. Well, both Cormac and Conor were excited about the Salsa. They'd only heard about salsa in Ireland, a more meat and potatoes place, and the saucy enticement of salsa (and salsa dancing!) consumed their chatter far longer than I would have expected. C'mon...it's only salsa! LOL!

They also compared outfits. Conor's Americanized version was amazingly accurate compared to Cormac's traditional Irish garb. Cormac told me later that he thought I should make him something like that....just for a change of clothes now and then.


Oooooh....who is that lurking in the background? Cormac and Conor were getting really chummy here. I think they were trying to figure out a way to get us to buy them Margarita's, but given it was barely noon, I think they knew better than to try too hard. But WHO is that back there????


Ha! The Johnny Depp Pirate! He joined us briefly, just to show off his ruffles and jewels and the monkey on his back. What a loveable pair! Wish I'd gotten a good photo of them but you can always see them on Carol's blog.


And before we left, the wonderful waitress took our photo. Who knows what she thought of us going on and on about our little friends there? LOL!

Leprechaun's Lunch!!

Leprechaun's Lunch

(transposed post from Battatter's Blogger)
Hello All!
Today there was a Leprechaun's Lunch at Pepe's, a local Mexican restaurant. Gina had an art class in town today, so we decided our little Leps should have a playdate. They were so pleased to meet each other! They were quite happy that they looked so similar, too. Cormac was a little cutie, and Conor told me later, that he loved hanging out with his little Irish cousin.

As you can see, they did some "salsa" dancing together, and then hang out and had some nachos. The Leps had their fun, and so did Gina and I. We talked about tatting, I did let her in on what my secret Project X is, (dun dun duuuun). We also talked about other things and had a very nice lunch!

Here is a picture of Gina and myself, with the Leps in the center... see them?, and, as usual, I have my eyes closed! Thanks for the nice little getaway, Gina and Cormac, we will have to do it again soon.

Playdate!

I hope this doesn't make all the other leprechauns green with envy but Cormac and Conor have a playdate on Saturday!!!

Hope he likes Mexican food.

As told to Cormac, Beloved Friend and Advisor....(loud clearing of throat)


It all began when I was sent on a mission across the Big Pond to befriend the dear Tatting Goddess (whom I've come to think of as The Royal Klutz lately). I was warmly welcomed and had the greatest fun poking around in her thread and bead stash and pouring through her books and albums. She showered me with affection and of course, we grew closer and closer, sharing tea on a regular basis and the occasional sip of wine. She shared with me the joy of her first split ring and then the triumph of her first split chain, then double picots and self-closing mock rings. She mourned the loss of discontinued favorite threads and the loss of patterns that disappeared into the mysterious black hole of a "safe place." We laughed and we cried together, hugging, giggling, trusting.



And then she told me...

She was an undercover tatter. She tatted in secret. Sometimes for weeks and months on end. I could tell she was beginning to crack under the pressure.

"How did this happen?" I asked.

"I don't know!" she sobbed. "At first, it was just a small surprise. A little tatting every month for a special reader of my blog."

"Yes? and then what?" I prodded.

"And then I added a mystery motif every month...you know, just to jazz the atmosphere up a little. It was fun teasing everyone...."

"Yes! Go on!" I pleaded.

"And then there was this "Secret Santa" thing that I do every year - it should not have been too much to do. I got to be extra sneaky and throw out hints and tease even more. " she said.

"Yes, Yes!" I knew she was very close to revealing something.

"Oh, but I shouldn't bother you, dear Cormac! You've been such a kind friend to me. Let's go have some ice cream!"

Oh, let me tell you, I was soooooo tempted...ice cream...whooah yummy yummy whoo-hoo! But I was so close to knowing her secret!

"ummm....I'm not in the mood for ...ice (gulp) cream just now..tell me more about your ...undercover activities. Please...it will do you good, make you feel better. I want you to feel better." I was practically begging her now.

"mmmm..oh, all right...well, then there was this special project for someone. Hush-hush, you know. It'll all come out before long."

"Really? Please please please let me see!!" Now I was groveling.

"No, I couldn't!" she cried.

...silence...

I knew she wanted to tell me. I waited. Suspense was building.





"Promise you won't tell?" she asked me.

"Oh no, not me, never! My lips are sealed." I said.

"Well, you know there's this Secret Valentine thingie going on now, and I have the special thing I'm tatting for the latest monthly winner, and well...I finished the special project!" she whispered...smiling slyly.

"Um Hum." I pretended disinterest but my tummy was screaming for ice cream. COME ON LADY! SPILL THE BEANS!!!!

"Okay, I'm going to just show you a tiny bit...and I'm not telling you which is what...so don't you even ask!" she scolded sternly. "Look the other way a minute, I have to disguise them a little bit. Not that I don't trust you," she added lightly.



"Okay, you can look now!".

I held my breath as I slowly turned around. Oh my! What can these be?

"Who is this for?" I asked.

She shook her head from side to side furiously. "Cormac! I can't tell you!"

"Hmmm...well, WHAT is this?" I asked, as if I didn't hear her scolding me.

"harummph!"

Obviously I wasn't making any brownie points with my innocent questioning.

"OH come ON! You gotta tell me about THIS one!" I exclaimed.

(BIG SIGH) "I think I'm going to have some ice cream anyway...how about you?"

Wham...I'm outta here!