Special Alert! Lep Attacked!

I have a horrid tale to tell! I was mortified the other night when I came home...it has taken me TWO days to recover! Well, let me start at the beginning.

You may remember I brought Cormac home from my office where he had been visiting and getting to know my coworkers, guarding my microwave and teapots. It was Christmas, after all, so I brought him home and he found a favorite spot nestled in my tabletop chimes, a gift from a dear friend. It was a good partnership - Cormac and the chimes both being gifts from special friends, and he could see almost EVERYTHING from this vantage point. Once I took all the Christmas stuff down, he had all kinds of room to move around.

This weekend it was so very nice and I decided it was safe to open up the drapes and let some sunshine in! They are nice thermal drapes and keep the cold out but we were all badly needing some sunlight so I opened them up and left them that way. I came home the other night, Monday night, and was admiring the open feeling in the living room when I happened to glance down at the carpet.

HORRORS!

There was poor Cormac! His hat was nearly torn off and he was crouched down in a fetal position. Oh, who could have done this dastardly deed? Was he all right? I knelt down beside him and gently turned him over.

Ah, I should have known! He's a hardy lad! He was all smiles and I picked him up and set his cap back upon his head. No scratches or torn clothing. I must have just gotten home in the nick of time!

Oh, but what is this???? It's his coin! And his tatted shamrocks! Someone tried to rob him!

Ah, thanks be to the Irish spirit in him! He told me he never saw them coming but they were huge and pushed him off the chimes and batted him around. He thought he was a goner and kept his eyes tightly shut - and then....he heard me open the door!

Well...I have an idea who his attacker was. There are FOUR suspects so we'll just try to narrow it down.

This is Skunk, the leader of the pack. He is the oldest and claims his territory regularly, but he's lazy and once he claims a spot, he hardly moves from it for weeks at a time. Besides, he is missing some crucial teeth and likes to only chew on soft stuff.

Next in line is Chewie, named after the famous Star Wars wookie because of her coloring. She is the smallest but only a year younger than Skunk and she is his half sister, born the following year. She likes to groom him from time to time and she certainly claims her territory right next to him. Sometimes I think she actually has the upper hand even if she is tiny and can't meow very loud. She's got a whale of a HISSSSS though. She's not too playful either and likes to tell everyone what to do without too much action herself.

Now this fellow, Dillon, is sneaky. When he first came here and Skunk and Chewie were still outside, HE claimed the house for himself. When the others came in, he got knocked down a notch or two but he likes to sneak up on everyone, cat and human alike, and rub on them. He's very inquisitive and sometimes agitates the others on purpose. He's certainly a more likely culprit than the first two.

And now we have Diogi...low kitty on the Cat pole. For that reason alone, I think she may be harboring a grudge and takes it out on anyone she can. I've also caught her on top of the entertainment center. She certainly has had me fooled with the way she always acquiesces to the others. I think she's just been biding her time.

Unfortunately, I cannot prove it so everyone is free for now. In the meantime, I brought Cormac into my computer/craft studio where he will remain safe as I keep the door closed.

Thank goodness he lives to celebrate another St. Paddy's Day!!!!!

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?”

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.

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.

The Leprechaun Has Landed!

Ever since I saw this post on the blog called It's A Leprechaun's Life I had been secretly hoping for something to arrive in my mailbox. You see, Tatskool of the Tats A Kool Challenge tatting blog has been making and giving hand stitched leprechauns to a few lucky recipients each year! The previous recipients have had the most delightful adventures with their leprechauns and then they post about them on the leprechaun blog! Sometimes when two or more tatters who own a leprechaun are going to be at the same tatting event they will bring their leprechauns to the event so that the leprechauns can "meet" each other! The meeting isn't complete until there are photos taken and a blog post about it! It's quite fun to read about it in the leprechaun blog! Apparently the most recent batch of leprechauns had to undergo some grueling interview questions. The questions were asked in order to find those most capable of going out into the world to spread cheer, joy and mischief to whomever they were assigned to! This was quite an ordeal according to Tatskool! So, it may not surprise you that deep down inside I was quietly hoping that my name was on the list of this year's recipients!

You can imagine what I was thinking when I recieved a package in the mail last Friday, December 11th that had these stamps on the top of the padded envelope!
These beautiful irish stamps that say "ÉIRE"!


My heart skipped a beat when I saw that the return address said "Ireland"!



Further investigation revealed a brightly wrapped Christmas package!!!Something was just a little odd about this package! You see, it was squirming! Yes! The package was wriggling around and then I heard mumbling as the paper began to tear open by itself...or so it seemed!


To my delighted surprise a cheerily dressed leprechaun emerged from the gold and red wrapping paper!

Stiofán had arrived!He held in his arms one of Tatskool's most popular HDT's (Hand Dyed Thread) called "Rainbow Bright". He offered it to me rather ceremoniously, telling me that this was mine and I could tat a lovely bit of tatting of whatever I chose. I thanked him graciously, of course!


He was kind enough to pose for some pictures. When I mentioned to him that he is quite photogenic he surreptitiously agreed. He then went on to explain that he had done some modeling in Ireland for an exclusive magazine for leprechauns called "Leprechaun's Quarterly". He said he even made the cover once! I asked him why he was acting so timid about it. He admitted that he didn't mention it during the interview with Tatskool's lep, named Fergeal, for fear he might be taken as a shallow leprechaun and that it might hurt his chances for traveling abroad. After this was revealed he did seem more at ease when he saw that I was not the least bit phased by his confession. In fact, he agreed to pose for more photos! He even did some close ups!

He said this one looked a lot like the photo that made the cover for "Leprechaun's Quarterly".


In his right hand he holds an Irish penny that says "éire 2003".


His festive red belt is festooned with a chain of lucky green tatted clovers and beautiful green glass beads!


What I really wanted to show you was the painstaking detail that has gone into Stiofán's creation!

Note the tiny hand stitched threads that make the detail of his face!

He even has a twinkle in his eye!


One of the first things that Stiofán did was teach me how to pronounce his name properly. He says it is a name from the Old Irish tongue and is pronounced thusly:

"Shtee-oh-fawn"

He even showed me a website that has the pronunciation key for Ancient Irish pronunciations! What a clever fellow...er...leprechaun!
Stiofán is the Old Irish equivalent for the modern English name of Stephan (Steven).

When he looked around my living room he asked me what all the stacks of books were for. You see, currently I am in the process of creating an alphabetical index of my personal tatting library. I have all of my tatting books in stacks according to the letter of the alphabet the title begins with.

He marched over to the tallest stack...the "T's" [of course (T is for Tatting)]...and began his climb to the top of the stack. This was quite a feat for the little guy seeing as the stack was well over a foot high! Well, of course I had to take a picture of him once he made it to the top!Can you see that mischievous look in his eye? Doesn't it look like he's going to hurl that penny at me? He swears he was just waving, but he has that gleam in his eye! LOL!


Well, before Stiofán and I bid you farewell for the evening I'd like to invite you to be sure to say hello! I know it's been a while since I posted, but I have not disappeared from bloggerlandia completely! I promise that! I have lots to blog about so stay tuned!
♥

and Stiofán, too!

XOXO

Rory Arrives!!!

The mystery gift has been opened! Conor just couldn't wait and ripped into the package like a monkey on a banana!! And, lo and behold... there was a leprechaun inside bearing a gift! Conor was so excited he didn't know what to do first! (He has been a little sad lately, having gone thru a little upset of his own, but we will blog about that later.) He grabbed the thread to get a closer look... ooh such lovely colors. He wants me to use it very soon to make something lovely.

Well, then, being mischievious leps, they got into a tug o' war! But, it was all in fun, and soon were hugging it out!

Then, Rory showed us the letter from his Mum, explaining his real name is Ruari, but that we could call him Rory. And how he has come to live with Conor and me to be Conor's BFF!

Well now, Conor is so happy! He got out his new toys he got for Christmas (of course, Mom let him open early because of the special circumstances) and he and Rory had a great old time playing on the Christmas rubber duckies!

I can see this is going to be a wonderful friendship. Conor and I are also very curious to see who else was on Fergeal's list of leprechaun recipients!
Conor and I want to thank Tatskool and Fergeal for thinking of us, and sending us such a great little friend for Christmas.

                                                                        Hurray!

Leprechauns spread even further round the world.

Now..you all know my Leprechaun Fergeal and his siblings.

You can catch up on my blog by either searching for Leprechaun in my side bar labels..I see there are 10 posts OR in the search engine at the top of the blog. This helps me enormously when I can't remember if I posted some tatting or not! It might help you if you want to know how much thread to use for a project and I might have made it!
Also you can read ALL the posts in this blog.


sitting........................waiting for you to catch up.........................twiddling my thumbs.......................my hubby actually does this................while he is waiting at traffic lights.................who else does....................?

OK welcome back now I don't have to explain any more!



So lets start again.....

Fergeal has a list...(just like Santa Claus...only Fergeal checks his list every day). His list is all the tatters that he would like to have a Leprechaun.....

The problem is that he is such a gregarious little soul that his list gets longer and longer ...every day!!

I keep telling him "Fergeal, how do you think I can make all those Leprechauns, have you any idea how long it takes just to make one???"

Obviously he hasn't!

So I finally put my foot down and told him that I couldn't possibly make any this year.

He was not happy!

"If you stop that silly tatting you would have plenty of time!"

mmm I think I have heard that before!!

Well anyway, Fergeal decided that there was no option but to take matters into his own hands, handicapped as he is by his lucky Irish cent.

Nope, it's not what you think...he didn't borrow my felt, scissors, needles and thread.... he took the easy way out and he advertised in the Leprechaun Times....for Leprechauns willing to travel.... outside their homeland.....not afraid to learn new things...ambassadors for their country...and so on.

I didn't think that even one would apply..they are all so cosy at home....

But they must have been intrigued and so was I when he came and told me that he had seven applicants...seven!! (good job it wasn't the seven dwarves!!)

You might think that this was the end of the story...Oh no!

Fergeal decided that he had to interview them...to make sure that they were of good character and wouldn't let us down!!

There's more....

He said that he couldn't possibly interview them..where he normally lives...on top of the piano...watching me......Oh no!! he wanted his own office!!

I hope it keeps fine for him I thought!

Well it did..you may have noticed how the Leprechauns seem to get their own way...a lot. William has his own van and sets off whenever he feels the need....Oisin goes to college and let us not forget Brendan (the naviagator!) who was determined to see the world that he left his post and went AWOL! No we could never forget Brendan.

Fergeal didn't want a repeat of that.................and so I found myself in Leprechaun Office Supplies....with my credit card...bad move......

It seemed that not only did he want a desk and chair...but he wanted to upgrade his entire lifestyle!! He told me he wanted antique Irish furniture....solid mahogany circa 1850 ( he has been watching too many Antique Roadshows!

In yer dreams Fergeal!

Well to cut a long story short, he got ready for the interviews... I looked up and there was a line of Leprechauns waiting for their turn....pushing and shoving and nearly falling over each other, so eager were they.





A motley lot they look too!





Now there are no prizes...(but you can guess anyway)....for guessing which day Fergeal chose for his interviews???...think now think!.....or what he was going to ask them. All answers on a blank cheque please!

One by one they answered his gruelling questions, he even let them sit on his brand new rocking chair..... did they know what that mysterious object on his desk was?....



... the others relaxed on his new three piece suite!...and chatted amongst themselves...wonder what they were thinking...were they a teeny bit afraid of what they were letting themselves in for.



What was Fergeal holding in his hand and what was he going to use those books for that he had on his desk.....was he going to make them swear an oath....so many questions I was dying to ask...but i was going to have to wait...you can't afford to interrupt a Leprechaun doing his job.....remember that!



Every now and again he would get up and go over to his antique globe (note that it's an antique...well he thinks it is anyway!), give it twirl and peer into it and scratch his head.



Finally, finally the were all sent home, and I got to quiz him.

He was chuntering away to himself.

"What's up lad?" I dared to ask.

"One of them's a girl!!" was his reply.
"A girl, I ask you who has ever heard of girl leprechauns...no such thing!"

"mmmm!"I dared to reply, "if there are no girl leprechauns, where do you think you came from???"

Well if looks could kill!!

Looks to me like my brave little fellow fancies her, though he would never admit it.

I asked him how he knew it was a girl!!! He tapped the side of his nose knowingly and said that he knew all right, she may have been dressed like leprechaun but it was the little things that gave her away!!!

She was the first one that he called back and I did do a photo shoot while he wasn't looking.....but that's for another day.

As for the others he said they knew sod all about tatting, some of them had never heard of it.....but they were all keen....well wouldn't you be he said if you were offered the opportunity to travel the world.

I think he is jealous...he keeps on at me that I promised him a world tour!!

So anyway back to the job in hand....he has sent them away to the Lep Academy for their tatting/spy training and they just arrived back the other day.

I wonder where he has decided to send them.

I guess I will soon know.

Leprechaun Reunion at Palmetto

Danny was really looking forward to going to Palmetto. Any trip away from home is good, but this one was special since he could visit with some of his cousins. Fergus arrived on Thursday as well, and they had a great time.

They quickly located the chocolate in the hospitality area.

They found some nice greeting cards.

They thoroughly explored the vending room, starting with the silent auction table.

Remember how Danny liked to play in the ball (of thread) pool at Hector? He taught the game to Fergus. Tracy Jackson of the Lacemaker of Cortland OH came over to see what the maniacal laughter was all about, but she let them keep playing.

More fun climbing the display rack on Georgia's table.

Finian arrived later. They had a fine party Saturday night.

They got to meet Georgia!

They stayed up very, very late since they didn't want it all to end and go home the next day. They promised to meet again next year.