St. Patrick’s Day has a very special meaning to me because not only is it just a happy-go-lucky holiday, it’s my birthday! Leprechauns and Faerie Folk have been huge influences in my life and I decided that in light of of this I would stitch-up this mischievous retro leprechaun that I shared with you all last year on St. Patrick’s Day. He’s a sketch I made from this great vintage graphic that a friend sent my way many a year ago now.

This is my drawing hanging out on my inspiration board this year.

As you can tell, I altered him up a bit just because I love to play around with photo-editing sometimes, plus I think he looks rather dashing all green. To the point, Here is my embroidered version…

This is him done with a back-stitch outline. I could’ve stopped here, but since I didn’t color-tint him like I did my narwhal, I decided to go ahead and fill him in with satin-stitch and then I added the word Sláinte (it’s Irish for Health) just because it felt oh, so right to.

Here’s the completed piece (which is about 7inches by 7inches measuring the whole piece of fabric)

Here’s a detail shot of his face (and slightly wonky hand, lol)

And here’s a fun, different angle shot to show some more of the stitching detail.

That was a ton of satin-stitch and I did most of it with an injured hand (which I blame time-change for, btw, since I have never once ever hit my hand on the bookshelf before Monday morning). Luckily it was my left, so the majority of the time it was my right hand doing the work, but still. I do think it will be awhile before I tackle that much satin-stitch for a single project. The letters of Sláinte were done with stem-stitch and that’s my free-style handwriting.

So there you have it – one very happy LaWhimsy Leprechaun who want’s to wish you and your’s good health and good cheer each and every day of the year!

Namaste ~ Ella