A Brief Adventure

The Grand Canal Theatre

Photo by John Byrnes

I went on a little adventure this week, hence the lack of blogging. I was in Dublin for a bit, which is where my family are originally from, and where I spent years working in my late teens/early twenties. It was nice to hang out in some old haunts, but even nicer to see how much it's changed in the past 10 years. I was up around the canal area and the IFSC, and it looks like a completely diferent city. There is some great arcitecture, especially The Grand Canal Theatre, and the Samual Beckett Bridge I had two firsts this weekend, I was on the Luas and I was also on a ricshaw. It seems crazy that I had never been on the luas before, but out of laziness I always automatically hop on the bus when i get off at hueston, but with the help of my sister i managed to figure out the ticket machine. It was fun, it didn't feel like I was in Dublin at all. The ricshaw was a blast, the Brazilian guy cycling it was rather charming and handsome, and it was a novelty to see the street lit night flying past at speed. It was ceertainly much nicer than getting an over priced cab and listening to a grumpy taxi driver. 



After my couple of days in Dublin I went to visit my ex housemate Cecily in Belfast. Even though it's only really up the road I had never been up North before, but i was delighted that I made the effort. It's a vibrant city with bit of an underdog feeling to it. It has lots of really nice bars and cafes, but it's not as flashy and showy as Dublin, which is a good thing. On Saturday night we went to see Fionn Regan is a quiet church gig. It was a really fantastic performance, but I was a little disappointed that the only beverages on offer we tea and biscuits, it was a little too subdued for a grand night out in the big smoke.

 Belfast City Hall

 I wish I could remember the names of the places I went to, but some highlights were:
A double rum and coke for £5 in a huge bar that played great music
A beastly breakfast that could have fed a starving family
A 3 hour chat in a lovely coffee shop with very cozy sofas
A magical chinese that lets you get a little bit of everything in in tray for a single set price(I didn't pay so I've no idea how much it was) but it was amazingly unhealthy and delicious,perfect 3am food!
Getting to listen to everyones' accent, which is rather tasty too
Getting to hang out with Cecily, I miss her lots.

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Dublin, Buttons and a bit of Moo

I'm off later today to the belle city of Dublin. We have an Etsy Ireland meeting on Saturday, and I'm really looking forward to putting some more faces to the names. Lots of people have said they'll go to this meeting, so hopefully there will be a good turn out. I'll also visit my parents and some friends while I'm there, I'm originally from Celbridge which is just a hop skip and a jump, and a bus ride, from the main city centre. So sadly folks my blogging adventures will have to go on hold for a few days as my parents still have dial-up and a computer made from cellotape in the 90's.
Sadly John has absconeded with my camera so I can't show you the yummy new MOO mini business cards that arrived in the post. Or my really cool MOO personalised stickers. You'll just have to trust me when I say they are fab!

I did managed to click some pics of these fabulous new buttons that I got. I've added a few new listings in my shop for mixed bags and pairs of buttons. As always the temptation is to keep them, but I must reign in my addiction and sell the buttons.In other news, I may be getting a crafty tattoo next week, but shhh don't tell my mother. Even though I haven't lived with my folks for 10 years she still would give out to me....some things never change.

Etsy Ireland Meeting, Dublin

I went to the Craft Ireland Etsy Team meeting today in Dublin. It was a bit of a long trip but I was able to fit in a visit with my parents and the meeting was great. I met up with Tanya, Alex, and Sarah. It was really good to find out more about the team, show some of my products and volunteer to help out with the teams blog. I don't think I'll be able to to to the monthly meeting, but every couple of months should be easy enough to manage.

Check out their great blog with there themed articles per day. I should have a few guest posts coming up before Christmas, don't worry I'll let you know before hand so you can check it out.

Here is there lineup:
Introducing Mondays( an intro to a newcomer to the team)

Tutorial Tuesday( a walkthrough tutorial)

I'll show you mine Wednesday( a tour of a crafty studio)

Trade Secrets Thurday( an article about good supplies shops)

Fab 5 Friday( 5 great picks from the team)

[Crude] Magazine Feature

Well it was bound to happen eventually, my little sewing machine eventually died. There have been lots of small problems with it for ages but it eventually gave up the ghost last night. Unfortuneately it's not the best timing in the world to be paying for repairs, but to be honest I'm surprised it lasted this long with the amount of work I do on it. Luckily my lovely friend Sharon lent me hers for a little bit so I won't have to stop working.
I'll be heading up to Dublin for a little trip tomorrow. Just a short one, on secret mission that I hopefully will be able to tell you more about soon, suffice to say I'm very excited about it.

Any on my Irish readers might be interested to know that I'm in Crude magazine with a very cool 4 page spread. It's an alternative lifestyle magazine with surfing, design, music, tattooing and fashion. It's a quarterly publication and a really good read, you can pick it up in any Easons or HMV (also give the crossword a shot, my lovely John compiles it, it's very tricky). The proper website seems to be offline at the moment for updating so I just gave a link here to the myspace page.

I'm in LOVE

Yey I'm back to Limerick! As promised,I have photos of my wonderful bounty. I spent a whopping 235 euro in the Woolen Mills on ribbon,thread buttons and trimmings, but they are essential supplies that will keep me going(and inspired) for a good while. Here are a few snapshots of my goodies.



I also went to Shebeen Chic on Georges St, it's a bar and restaurant that has all recycled and reclaimed furniture(and everything is for sale/swap). On Saturday afternoons you can bring in bags of clothes, shoes,accessories and trade them in.I love this idea! Because I get lots of donations of clothes from people I am often left with lots of clothing, that for various reasons, I can't use. So I brought a bag of these extras to the shop. I wasn't expecting to get that much in return, but shockingly I came out with my bag full of wonderful finds. Here are a few examples but I got loads more. The black coat is even a Ben Sherman, even better is that if I had nothing to swap I could have bought it for 1 euro!! I will definitely be making more trips to Dublin to get supplies.

Material Goods

I arrived safely in the land of THE PALE, and I had a wonderful time yesterday, wandering about Dublin, looking at pretty things in shops, drinking lots of coffee, and generally just arsing about the place. The gig was a bit of a mixed bag. The support band In the Country were truely fantastic, with one of the most talented and inventive drummers I've ever seen. They were a mostly intrumental trio, with music full of tinkling sounds, inventive purcussion and emotive swells of melody. The main act Susanna (who was playing with members of In The Country) was a little disapointing. I don't really know her music but I found it a little hallow, she had all the right ingredients-great voice, good music, kinda quirky, but for me it just didn't gell together right. All in all I'm glad that I discovered a great new act, and at 20 euro it didn't hurt the purse too much.
Another part of my trip to Dublin was to buy supplies in the Woolen Mills, it's the best place in I reland to buy thread,trimmings and thread and they are very reasonably priced. So I was like a kid in candy store after a famine. I arrived at the till with an overflowing basket, and the very lovely and patient lady spent nearly a half an hlour with me measuring out all the triimings. I got tonnes of stuff and I can wait to get home and put it all to good use. I'll take some photos when I get back home to limerick so that you can drool and feel very jealous.
Another highlight from yesterday was finding the pub Grogans, officially now my new favorite place, I have no idea how i hadn't heard of the place before but it's fantastic. It's a kind of a dindgy old man bar, with loads of paintings on the walls, lots of add charaters about the place, and the finest Guinness I've tasted in THE PALE.

Dublin excursion

Well I'm off to belle Dublin tomorrow morning. My primary reason is to surprise a friend of mine for her birthday, knowing my luck she will decide to start reading this blog and the whole surprise will be ruined! I'm going up on the train with a bunch of friends of mine and we're heading to see Susannna and the Magic Orchestra, I don't really know her stuff but gigs are always fun. I'm also going to be delivering some clothes of mine to FashionFilosofy blog and the will be be doing a photoshoot with the above clothes( which I must say is pretty exciting). My other port of call will be Shebeen Chic, a restaurant that has a swap shop on Saturday afternoons. Anyone who saw the nationwide show I was on would have seen their feature too. I'm really looking forward to seeing their shop as it seems like my kind of thang. The only disappointing thing is that they seem to have a non-existant online presense, which is a bit behind the times for any new business of that sort.