Paris Mercerie (Fabric) & Paris Markets

Now, where were we?

Everyone travels for different reasons. Some to go to a place and look around. Some to escape the routine and breathe some fresh air. Me? I go for fabric. Okay, I’ll look around and enjoy the sights, see the wonders, visit the museums, but it’s like an internal radar: where are the fabric shops?

We recently returned from a trip to the Carrefour Quilt Show in the Alsace region of France, with an additional few days in Paris. Yes, the quilt posts are coming (and will be spread out), but as I’m emptying my suitcase (singular — which is part of the challenge) and my backpack and unpacking what I purchased for souvenirs, I thought I’d share a little. Or a lot. This can also serve as a resource for others heading that direction.

One morning, after stopping by the local boulangerie (this one was Bo & Mie, and that babka cannelle went right into the bag), we headed up to Montmartre, a hilly, historic district in Paris’ 18th Arrondissement. From a previous trip I knew that at the base of the Montmartre basilica were lots and lots of fabric (mercerie or tissus) shops. As I mentioned before, I only had one carry-on bag, so decided to focus on ribbons (ruban), as I was also carrying what small amounts I’d purchased in Alsace at Carrefour.

We rode the metro up to near Montmartre then got off and walked up through streets. I’d typed in “mercerie” into my map program (I mostly used Apple Maps, but my husband used Google Maps and between us we usually made it somewhere).

I could see through the window that Frou-Frou had ribbons. Many people speak English; my husband speaks French, so I brought the bolts of ribbon that I wanted to the front desk. Right there, she measured off what I needed — no walking to a neighboring counter this time — and rung me up.

…which was this jumbo place. There are several large stores in this area with lots of fabrics to choose from. It’s almost like going to the Los Angeles fabric district, but before ICE decimated the area with their raids. I never made it to the rooftop to see those trees growing up there, but I probably wasn’t allowed to go there.

On the first floor, you get the layout of the place, with long tubes of fabrics laid out on tables. This place also had mannequins dressed in sample dresses (in this case, very strange sample dresses–more like they were tucked, gathered and pinned onto the models). Click individual pictures to enlarge them.

The map in the stairwell gives you a sense of what’s on each floor and there is no elevator for customer use. Everyday is “leg day” in Paris.

On one floor I looked out the window to see the Sacre-Coeur Basilica at the top of the hill.

When I see all this, it’s easy to forget that our locations for fabric in the States have sort of dried up, with the closure of JoAnn’s.

This table reminds me of what I purchased at our last stop at the Carrefour Quilt Show: a thick geometric woven tapestry, plus cotton webbing to match. Because of this, I’m drawn to the fabrics on the table.

I found these on a neighboring table (it’s dangerous to walk around in strange fabric stores). There were many other shops to explore, but we pressed on to see the Basilica. Later, when we walked on the other side of the hill, we saw this shop:

Given the weight of the tapestries in my backpack, I asked the shopgirl to cut some small pieces that they didn’t already have cut. “Non,” the girl said. “We don’t have those in smaller pieces.” Given that the yardage above was there and waiting, and that she obviously was not going to cut anything for me, we left without any of this fun fabric, and went down the street for a yummy Cambodian meal at Le Cambodge.

In another section of St. Germain (5th Arrondissement), we window-shopped at Pierre Frey. We were on our way to buy my other favorite souvenir, table linens.

This is Jacquard Français, a linen shop, introduced to me by my big sister. I am a big fan of buying usable souvenirs, like cheap-o shopping bags (we live in a state where we bring our own to the grocery store). Last time we were here, we purchased placemats and napkins and every time we use them, we remember our time in France. We’d purchased cool colors (blues, greens) last time around, so warm colors was what I was looking for. (Available in the states through this shop.)

Julie, an owner of the shop here in Paris, agreed to pose for this shot for me: the cool blues of her suit against these poppy, yellow and bright colors. We bought two of the orange placemats and two of the Half-square Triangle placemats although she referred to them as “origami.” When I explained to her that I’d just been at a patchwork show in Alsace, and we called the pattern by a different name, she understood. “Ah! Patchwork!” she said.

Did I mention how beautiful this shop was? It’s a new one, she explained, as they just moved over from their old one, a few blocks down the street. (We did know, as we went to the old one first, courtesy of our maps.) (This is the correct location.)

The whole shop is just so beautiful, with curving lines, perfect use of backgrounds:

She rang us up and then presented me with a tea towel that was patchwork! It was made for a promotion their company recently did. I was honored.

I’ve written about the Marché Bastille, too, and put up some Highlights you can watch. The scarves (above) are from there.

I’ve posted about our day at the Le Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen at Clignancourt, or Les Puces, as everyone calls it, here and here. What I purchased in one shop is above.

I wrote up a document to keep track of the Thursday markets, but there is other info on this, as well as a link to a page that helped me keep track. (downloadable PDF)

Are you still with me? (Hope so.)

Thursday morning, after we went to the Bastille Market, we then walked down a neighboring street into the Marais District (follow the green arrows). We ate at Babka Zana, enjoying an amazing sandwich made on challah bread, and filling chicken salad on the side.

Keep going along this street which has about a bazillion parfumeries, until you look into an opening and see La Mercerie Parisienne through the courtyard:

So much fun, so many ribbons. The last photo of threads on a rack is just for looks, she said. Real thread is….and she swung open a door to show all the threads. Tiny, but gorgeous. I purchased…white double-faced satin ribbon (again).

Part of being in a new place for a few days is noticing. Like this terrific jeans skirt.

Or The Sky of Paris On The Wall, 2025. Round a corner and there’s some new…

…object to appreciate or to capture with your camera.

It does help to be in a new place, for all the little miracles in our neighborhoods have already been seen a thousand or more times…so we don’t see them anymore.

Rough translation: A little breath of poetry around our lives.

I might add that quilting is a little breath of poetry around our lives–

P.S. I’ll probably do another post about the Les Puces flea market and how to navigate that, but first:

I’ve been sick in bed with a bad cold, and memories of Paris.

And more fun upon returning: my computer has eaten about a third of my files (long story, you don’t want to know), but if you are using iCloud as a back-up for your Apple computer, don’t. Get yourself a hard drive and back it up that way. iCloud is just so all your devices can talk to each other, NOT a back-up. And to those who ask, yes, I had both and yes I’m still having problems, but according to Reddit, iCloud is the problem. But what do they know? What does anyone know?

(And I’ll probably remove this rant in the future, but for now, this is the state of my life!)