Saturday, April 10, 2010

Happy Tartan Day!!

Today we visited my grandmother again and she's looking MUCH improved and seems she'll be okay. She even got up and walked around already. Afterwards we went to Historic St. Charles Main Street which I blogged about in this post.




And today was the Missouri Tartan Day!! Yippee! I'm part Scottish and love all things Celtic so that was a blast! We went to the festival and unlike the first few they had which were small, this year had LOTS of entertainment and people of all kinds dressed in so many fun costumes or traditional Highland dress. I especially loved one girl's medieval queen's gown with a bit of Tartan tucked in. Her boyfriend or husband had peasant Highland clothes on, rather authentic. I'm very shy so I urged my mother to ask her if she'd made the dress herself. My mom laughed at me and said for me to do it and finally I just managed to say, 'I love your dress' and then mom took pity on me and asked her - she had it made for her. It was so nice. But not as nice as a costumed as the one I saw a few years ago advertising for the French Festival. So I have to find out when that one is!!


Picture courtesy MO Tartan Day Website





Anyway, back to the Scottish festival, I was caught unprepared and so have no pictures of my own to show - alas!! I saw so many cool costumes, jewelry, funny shirts, dressed up dogs (there was some kind of contest) and showing of different border collies, etc. and some girls had really dressed up their hair in cool buns or lots of pixie braids. There were even some very odd, out of place Goth/Scots that were outlandishly dressed and not a little scary and playing with thick sticks in mock battle. The Society of Creative Anachronism was there demonstrating how to make chain mail and making jewelry from old medieval style molds, etc. We all bough silver jewelry - bracelets, rings, and I bought a pin from the Fraser of Lovat clan badge - because I love the Outlander novels by Diana Gabledon so - it had the stag and Je Suis Prest and I was so thrilled at it I bought it instead of my own clan badge - our last name is Todd, but they are only a part of the Gordon clan and so I can never find our crest (which has three Fox heads on it and really cool) but instead the Gordon clan one which is in comparison...sorry to say, not quite as cute. So I got Jamie Fraser's badge and put it on my purse for now. LOL Fans of the book will understand the urge. ;-)


There were caber tosses, bag pipers (sadly already done for the day, but trailing around), knights fighting, lots of other Hi gland games being played, it was so fun! My dad even bought and immediately put on a sort of modern kilt (khaki with lots of pockets like a pair of cargo pants, but pleated and rather cool - he then bought a leather sporran and mom bought him the traditional off white knee high socks. He still needs a sgian dubh - which is a traditional small knife worn in full dress - also mom wants to buy him a proper shirt to go with it so we promised the vendor to go back tomorrow. I really hope we do and that I remember my camera. Today was the really big day, but maybe tomorrow will still be good. The had a highland cattle pen, but I didn't get a chance to look. I had a great time, but so exhausted!! I fell asleep as soon as we ate and came home. Just dropped to sleep fit for the dead.

So my weekend is full and happy - hope yours are, too!!!!

2 comments:

Christine said...

Sounds like a great time! I'm not Scottish (Irish and English is as close as I get) but I have loved the sound of bagpipes since I was a kid...my dad use to take us to concerts in the area we lived as there was a Scottish society there.
Your post reminded me of a fav. high school teacher who was like John Keating in "Dead Poets Scoiety" . He was from Missouri too and every so often would wear his kilt to school...he was so proud of his Scottish heritage and his roots in "Mizzurah" as he liked to say:)

What a wonderful way to celebrate your heritage!

58 Cherries said...

Thanks, I'm half Greek on my mom's side. And the other half is an interesting mix of: English, Irish, Scots, French, German, Italian and Cherokee. I'm a mutt. LOL

But our last name is still the scottish word for Fox, which is an animal I LOVE. It's a part of the Gordon clan and hard to get a badge for - it has three Fox heads on it, but darned if you can find a store that sells them - they stick to the big clans. *sigh* Anyway, they had Irish stuff there, too - and there's an Irish an Scots shop permanantly at St. Charles called the The Thistle and the Clover - a cute name and they also have Welsh, too. I just love that store. And I can't wait to see your futue lovely dolls. I must try again to make one, after seeing your lovely doll in person I realized I was WAY off on proportions and how big you could make the dolls - I had no idea the clay would bake such big pieces - I'm used to making tiny miniatures with the regular sculpey. But now I'm ready to try again, especially now that I have a studio to set things out better. Not that they'll be anywhere near as beautiful as yours. ;)

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