It Was a Good Day to Be Irish

Aren't eating and drinking holidays just the best? Like many people I can claim a wee bit of Irish in my background, but even if I couldn't, wearing green, toasting the Emerald Isle with good stout or a wee dram of your favorite whiskey makes for a fine day. Corned beef and cabbage is not a favorite of mine, but plenty of people love it and I've done my fair share of New England Boiled Dinners on March 17th. If I had to list some of the things I miss about New England, in the top 10 would be the wonderful ethnic holidays that are celebrated in many small ( and large) villages and towns.The foodstuffs are varied and interesting. French Canadians with their poutine, the Polish with pierogi, kapusniak (kapusta), and golabki (stuffed cabbage leaves), and Finnish with amazing chewy rye breads and sweet tasty pulla. You really wanted to get to their church bake sales fast. The line was usually at the door waiting for them to open. None of that here that I have found.
It would seem on the westward travels, with few exceptions, those close heritage oriented enclaves have disappeared. For good or bad, I can't say.

In honor of the holiday, I finished up the green capelet/jacket. And what a PITA it was!
Basically you are instructed to complete a shaped sleeveless blouse with armholes and neckline finished with bias binding, which the cape is sewn onto in the front and rides loose over the shoulders and back. Then, the torturing begins. You apply in drips and drabs, a continuous facing around the fronts, bottom blouse hem and neck of the cape part.






 It's messy and awkward on that funnel neck. Do you catch the finished binding edge of the blouse part? How best to do that? It causes pulls in the shaping and because of the cape being attached there is no nice way to turn it inside out for draping on Rhonda to see how it all sits. The cape bulks it up too much. If I were to do it again, I would ditch the back facing, cut the under blouse to match the back of the funnel neck and seam it together providing that back facing as one with the back blouse. Then I would adjust the two side/front facings to make a clean edge all around. And I might make it again. It is surprisingly comfortable. I wore it all day yesterday over a green turtleneck and it provided just the right amount of layers for inside on our cold blustery St. Paddy's Day. The bonus, I snagged Gene to take some pics of it and a couple of other recent finished projects while I was getting ready to walk our lobster. And the capelet doesn't pull at the underarm like it looks in this pic. It caught strangely under the arm in these. Oh well.



 Michelle, these are for you and best of luck to your Dad. Safe journey!
Here is the coat and yesterday was really cold enough to wear it.

 And the cute Indygo Junction jacket.



Along with lobster walking, I took the big hairy beastie (AKA Cooper), out. Finally the gate area has melted down allowing for easy entering and exiting. We took a stroll down the driveway and across the street for a bit. Cooper as always, was calm and easy, on the lookout for any spring grass growing right beside large mounds of shaded snow.
Dandy spent the 15 minutes hollering for his buddy. Not surprising, they are both probably a bit herd bound. I'll get the roly poly red one out for a jaunt today. I'm also cutting back on their hay. The really cold stuff is behind us and as usual, it appears I have over fed a little....

Parting shot: Quick, snap it!
 

Charlotte and Pogo refused to participate, but they did get treats too.