Bonjour Bonjour!! — by Guest Mom Zanne Blair

Bonjour Bonjour!!

I'm not French. Far from it. This is the way my mom and I greet each other on the phone. The start of a usually lengthy, but uplifting and funny conversation that lasts an hour or so, and seems the right way to greet you. So...Bonjour Bonjour!!!. I'm more than thrilled and feel wonderful having been asked to share a week with you. Thanks so much for having me and I look forward to sitting with you, a cup of tea and having some fun conversations!

Design and Mom have been words that have been in my life always. Grandmother artists, a mom who made life wonderful by gardening, sewing, decorating and mothering. My grandmothers (my mom's mom and dad's step mom) were wonderful exposing me to the arts and style and fashion.



Grammy (Dad's step mom), lived with PopPop in their really big house filled with wonderful antiques and rugs and furniture from their travels all over the world. Grammy would always come home with a piece of jewelry, clothing or scarf that she would pull out of a special drawer during one of my regular visits. Years later, after PopPop and Grammy retired to New England, she shared her needlework with me. We'd go to her favorite stitch shop and we'd find a project to work on, needlepoint, cross stitch or embroidery. I don't know where any of these are now, lost in some move at some point in my life (and boy, have I moved...), but the things that I learned are invaluable and the memories even more priceless.

I have tons of wonderful memories about the fun times with Grammy and PopPop, I feel so lucky. I always laugh out loud though, when I remember the morning I woke up to Grammy making pancakes. I was thrilled. I sat down to the table and she put the plate of blueberry pancakes in front of me. She poured the syrup, I was starving. I looked down, and my pancakes were covered with syrup and tons of black ants. I was a little speechless, but able to tell her about the ants. She took the plate over to the sink, and scraped the ants off the pancakes. Scooped the ants out of the syrup, then covered my pancakes in new syrup. She placed the plate back down in front of me. I thanked her, then looked down at my plate. My parents always taught me to eat what was put in front of me, and knowing that my grandparents were sticklers for manners, I tried my best to scoot all the ant legs I could find over to the side of the plate. I ate every last drop. I don't think I ate for another day or two.

Mom's mom - Grammie - would take me to lunch at the fancy restaurant in town where they would have fashion shows during lunch. Fur coats to spring dresses, I don't think I missed a season for years. She lived with Grandpa in a wonderful old farmhouse. I loved their house. A yellow kitchen with black and yellow floors, a greenish dining room, wonderful velvet couches in the living room, and a crazy deep shag red rug on the stairs and the hallway upstairs. She was only a few minutes away so we visited often, sometimes spending the night (the house was haunted!). She loved to paint, flowers and landscapes, her paintings now fill the homes of her children. She also had subscriptions to fashion magazines. The one I remember most was W. It was bigger than all the rest, the pictures were HUGE! Perfect for tearing out and putting on my wall. I'd get the mail from the mailbox, and there they would all be. I would beg her to let me take them home, beg her. She'd pull out a pile of magazines she was finished with and find me a bag I could carry them home in.



Grammie and Grandpa were quite the characters (aren't all grandparents?). I planted trees with Grandpa in his gardens (he was a dairy farmer), and Grammie always wore the best clothes. These wonderful suits, blouses and Ferragamo shoes, all in a cedar closet that smelled wonderful. I spent many hours exploring her closets, loving all the different fabrics and shiny buttons. All this while she baked sticky buns and ginger snaps, filling the house with a smell that will always trigger Dot and Reg memories.

Mom, well mom could give Martha a run for her money, and still can. Her thumb is so green, the Hulk would be jealous. Mom taught me how to sew, put a brush in my hand, and bought me a box of 64 crayons when I got my first report card.



I started making my own clothes when I was 7. I never looked back. I made lots of clothes. I would spend all of my allowance on fabric and patterns. When I graduated from high school, Dad took me to the local sew shop and I spent most of my savings on a serger, so I could make clothes even faster. I went to school and studied fashion design, and kept sewing. I've recently launched LuckyStitches, a sewing lounge, to get more people sewing. Knowing the basics can take one far in life, I believe, and I want people to be inspired to make things, make memories, so I'm sure to offer classes that moms and dads can take with their kids, together. You know the saying, "A family that sews together..."

Now that I'm a mom (still kind of surreal and yet amazingly wonderful after 2.5 years), I appreciate even more my connection with my mom and grandmothers and the other amazing members of my family (my great dad, many wonderful aunts and uncles and cousins). I hope, yet also know, that I will provide my 2 year old with experiences that will open her heart and soul to art, history, relationships and so much more. It's already happening. We read and tell stories, old and new, we draw and paint and build things, we cook and clean, and among my favorites, we sew together. We don't sit side by side at sewing machines (yet), but she hands me tools from my sewing kit, she picks out fabrics for her skirts and decides which buttons to use, I even ask her to choose the thread color. She's got a sewing kit, and I've given her part of my vintage button collection to sort and get to know, and I've even found a stash of fabric scraps in her closet.



Here are some (there are so many!) of my favorite sites inspiring creative connections:
LizetteGreco
SouleMama
Angry Chicken
DIY Kids
scrumdilly-do
Kids Craft Weekly
House on Hill Road