Is Heaven in Paris?

Usually when we travel, I spare Kevin the agony of visiting textile or fabric shops, but this trip is so long that I wouldn’t be able to bear 10 weeks without looking at and drooling over fabric.  So when we visited Sacre Cour (Montmartre) in Paris, and stumbled upon Martre St. Pierre, I sent Kevin sightseeing on his own for a while.  That might be a white lie – I had checked with my friend Mimi to find out how to trip over tables of inexpensive fabric.

So what did I find? As you can see, there were rolls and rolls of fabric bins of 3 meter cuts. For anyone who likes to bin-dive, this was the place to be. Generally fabric rolls were sorted by fabric type, but not the bins. It was random ‘find an interesting corner, pull and tug” type of shopping. The fabric stores lined the street with mounds of fabric inside and out. Thankfully it wasn’t raining the day we were there but it was windy and cold. loved the overhead heaters one store provided to keep interested shoppers picking through bins.

What I liked the most was that the stores were full of creative ideas. One store had miniature models wearing outfits – about 20 of them. Next I liked watching people search for fabric with a sketch in hand. Probably saw a dozen or more. I can’t think of a better place to match fabric with a creative design.

Can you guess what I bought? Nothing – nada. Not because there wasn’t fabric to love, but because we are carrying backpacks and mine was full. That doesn’t mean however that I won’t accumulate fabric now that we are settled into an apartment in Avignon for several months.

In fact, if you know of great fabric stores in the south of France, please let me know.