The Wearing of the Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! This is my favorite 'minor' holiday. Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, colcannon, Guinness -- what could go wrong? I love making these foods and making sure that I wear green. Usually the green includes a tatted shamrock or two as well.

Here are the shamrocks I turned out this year:

That's Mariya Davydova's Clover in the middle. I pulled the outer chains tight on this one and it gave it just a bit of 3-D effect with the rings standing out of the middle of the chains. The Blooming Shamrocks on either side of it are also slightly 3-D. For them I modified Gina's lovely pattern a little so that the leaves would be smaller and frame the small ring more tightly. Then underneath on the left are three shamrocks based off of Gina's Lucky Seven pattern. I didn't have the pattern with me so the stitch counts are a little different. On the bottom right are two of Frivole's Trefle pattern. This is her version 2, with the SCMR. I like it very much -- simple and elegant. 

And here's how I wore them. 

There was a St. Patrick's Day square dance this weekend, but unfortunately I have no green square dance dresses. Solution? Pin shamrocks to my bodice. It's not as much green as I'd like but at least it was better than nothing. 

Finally, you might be wondering why some of my shamrocks were orange. Or you might have a good guess already. Everybody knows to wear green on St. Patrick's Day, whether they care to do it or not, but it's not as commonly known that green is a symbol of Catholicism while orange is a symbol of Protestantism. Personally I am a Protestant, so while I still want to wear green as a symbol of the day, I don't want to leave out my orange. Here's how I solved the conundrum today: 

You see my green shawl and my orange shamrock, side by side. I think I can wear green and orange together as a symbol of the unity of the church, right? Seems appropriate for a Sunday St. Patrick's Day.