French LuLu Shirt

granddaughter Laurel feeling Parisienne

This fun French outfit was a quickie project.  Just finishing a growth spurt, Laurel needed some new play clothes.  Of course, that was all the excuse I needed.  And I just love this cute design from Great Notions  LuLu in Paris  collection.

The inexpensive shirt was paired with a  white tank top and hot pink leggings.

One of her closest friends recently returned from a 6 week visit to Paris with her grandmother.  Between the stream of e-mail photos Ava sent and all her chatter about the wonders of the romantic city, Laurel’s interest in Paris and all  things French is piqued.

Of course, the shirt is a poor substitute for a glamorous trip to France, but it’s the best this Nana can do.

After studying French for several years, our daughter, Rebecca, speaks the language fluently.  For two consecutive summers while she was in high school,  we housed two French foreign exchange students.   Their English and her French improved enormously.  Later, Rebecca spent two summers in  France.  Each experience improved her French.

One of those summers she studied in Paris at La Sorbonne where her room looked out on the Eiffel Tower.  Later, as a young career woman, she was sent to Montreal for 8 weeks to represent the Florida office of her French-based company for meetings and business sessions.  I flew up for a fabulous week of   les bons temps  with my world traveling daughter.

With all these connections, the Lulu collection has been put to good use for a variety of projects.

It’s such fun to use embroidery and sewing to recall special memories.  I hope some day Laurel will have a memory of something more French than this little shirt.  Maybe she will study French and see the Eiffel Tower for herself. Or maybe she will just remember that her Aunt Rebecca and her friend Ava BOTH saw it in person.  Life is not always fair.

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Mama Fun: When our French student Olivier was with us, we wanted to show him as much of our country as possible.  One of the trips we planned was to my brother’s ocean front home in Cedar Key. (Technically, is it a gulf front home, as it faces the Gulf of Mexico~just a waterfront detail that seems to be important to the residents of Cedar Key, especially my brother.)   “Cedar Key,”  I explained, “is surrounded by water and is connected to other keys with bridges and causeways.”

Later that day, he asked, in his very heavy French accent, “Is Cedar Key in Iceland?”  I tried and tried to explain that a key is usually a small body of land, all or mostly surrounded by water.   Often it is connected to other keys by bridges and causeways.  And Cedar Key is IN FLORIDA.  We will be driving there.  In the car.

But he persisted and asked again, “Is Cedar Key in Iceland?”

After a lot of time and explanations, we figured out that he was pronouncing island phonetically.  He was asking, “Is Cedar Key an island.”

Foreign languages are tough.  Even English.