A bunting for St Patrick's

It WAS St Patrick's Day.

Our Mondays and Tuesdays fly by in a flash, leaving me on a Wednesday, wondering how I got here.  Still sore from Monday's training, bracing myself for tonight's, and trying not to think of Friday's looming grading.  This is our February and March, on a run with school and everything else, hurtling towards Ironman (husband) in April, after which we can fall into a collective pile.

 So.  What I planned to post over the weekend:

Due to my sis being married to a Cork-man, her residing in Ireland for near 11years now, and me having visited around six times, I'm considered the local Irish representative at my youngest's preschool and as such help out with St Patrick's week each year.

Picture and book display at the circle (Montessori school)

We'll wear something green, hang the Irish flag, have Enya, U2, Van Morrison. The Cranberries and..... How about some Gary Moore? Sinéad O'Connor!  And start off with me re-telling the legend of St Patrick. I might also read about about Cú Chulainn later, and maybe Molly Malone, or The Salmon of Knowledge. And the kids usually love the story of how The Giant's Causeway came to be!

Teachers Shan & Miriam hoisting the flag

Found some clover in my garden!

As for activities, we've previously made shamrocks of playdough, baked soda bread, took a photo of us all as a giant shamrock and sent messages to the cousin's preschool on Cork. This year I have shamrock seeds to sow, we might either make Irish flags or bake shamrock cookies. Mmm...how about potato prints...

Little hands making playdough cookies

In the end I found a box with bright green dot-stickers that they used to make clovers, drew in stems, a rainbow and a pot of gold.  We also searched for a four-leaved clover from the tiny harvest of my garden - no joy there. And I taught them why the botanical name of clover would be Trifolium - knew the years of studying agriculture would come in handy one day ;-)

There were three cakes of Bambi to make a bigger clover with

...even Nessa (ever-patient school dog) played along!

I also hooked up a quick bunting to string at the front door -and didn't take a photo of it in situ :-(

I used double strands of Vinnis Bambi, a cotton-bamboo blend with lovely texture, in a brilliant green. The result is a bit...rustic, but hey, I've ten balls to finish off.  Impulse buy gone wrong :-0

The pattern I printed out, and it has since disappeared in the abyss of my week, but it might have been this one.  Here's another lovely version to try.

With my Africa, Ireland also has a special corner of my heart. 

Cornel's mini-bunting pattern

See the lovely bunting in my work room?

The larger triangles I got from my friends at One of a Kind Yarns, and the tiny pink ones I hooked from my friend Cornel's pattern, originally published in Ideas magazine, Dec 2011.

Thy're easy-peasy to do and I hooked up quite a few strings during our road trip down south. That photo-collage came out a bit small, so here's some larger-than-thumbprint snaps :-)

The long road south

The little beads worked very well at night with the Christmas lights on!

Aberdeen farm stall, with the best coffee and pancakes on the N12.

Vellerif table at De Dekke barefoot beach restaurant

Find the pattern on Cornel's blog I Love Pom-poms.

( and make the bonus very-tasty upside-down pear tart!)