Everybody's Irish Today!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My family and I love this holiday. I am cooking corned beef and cabbage and potatoes for our dinner, my mother made soda bread, and my sister has baked a pale green cake with a darker green four-leaf clover shape baked into it for dessert. We are all wearing green, on pain of pinching. Mine is a kelly green sweater. My brother's is a shirt he swears is green but that we all think is brown. We can't pinch him, though, because he is convinced of his right to slap us back. (That is what you do when you are wrongly pinched on St. Patrick's Day, because you really are wearing green.)

Like a large number of tatters, I've made some of Gina's Lucky Seven shamrocks and one of Sharren's Irish for a Day shamrocks to celebrate the day. Sharren's name is so apt! I love how everyone wants to be Irish, whether they are by heritage or not. Ireland is just so loveable. I've got a little Irish way back in my family tree, but it is so far back it doesn't even have anything to do with my sister's Irish name. My parents just named her Bridget because they liked the name. And we just celebrate St. Patrick's Day because we like all the "Irish" things associated with it. So Irish for a Day describes American people very well, and it is also a great shamrock pattern. I loved the Lucky Seven shamrocks too. They are so simple and work up so quickly.

Next up: I'll tell you what's special about the shuttle and thread I used for the shamrocks. For now, I'll leave you with the Doxology from one of my favorite hymns, St. Patrick's Breastplate.

I bind unto myself the name

The strong name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same,

The Three in One,

and One in Three.

Of whom all nature hath creation;

Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:

Praise to the Lord of my salvation,

Salvation is of Christ the Lord.