Being Crafty in Paris

Part 2 of the Paris story!

The part where we were staying was next to a pretty busy street, full of bag shops (no normal bag shops unfortunately, only for gross sales), a couple of bakerys, a couple of restaurants and this lovely green store where we would walk by on our way to the metro station. It is great to see some green on a very busy street. The store was also the home of a Very Large Cat who slept in the window.

I would like to show you the amazing tiles of the Louvre in this post and talk a bit about some small shops, yarn and other creative stuff!

Firstly, the lovely floors of the Louvre.

This floor looked so much like a quilt. I have absolutely no idea how to make a quilt block out of this floor, but it looks great with the small triangles set next to blocks a bigger triangles.

I can see the pattern in this one! Just rotated rectangle in light and dark colours. It is a repeat with black-brown-black "steps" and the yellow-red blocks in between. I really like this one! It would be great to reproduce this effect with fabric.

Isn't this pretty? There were many more quilt like floors, absolutely beautiful. I would really recommend if you are going to visit the Louvre, please look down.

The first full day, after our walk on the Champs Elysees, we went to visit two small passages. One is the passage du Panorama, with lots of small restaurants. On the other side of the street the passage continues and there are little shops with jewellery, a shop with lots of Turkish carpets and oriental clothing, book stores, a non-traditional cane store and for example the above shop that sells handmade chair covers. The shop only measure about 1 to 1.5 square metres. Really tiny.

There was also this little miniature dolls and doll houses shop. Chockfull of stuff!

And this lovely embroidery shop. I caved and bought a little cross stitch set for a scissor holder. I will start soon and see if I can still do it!


The second day and third day there was some time for me to visit (yes well you are either an addict or not) two Parisian yarn stores!

First off, La Drogurie. A yarn store I have visited two years ago for the first time and were I drooled at the sight of alllllllllll those yarns hanging from the walls.
It is still a lovely sight. So many colours, so many thicknesses and a variety of fibers. They rearranged the store a bit and next to yarn and buttons and haberdashery they also sell fabrics and yarn cones. The shop is chock full of creativity oozing out of every corner. It was extremely busy when I went there and I hate to say it, I left the store a bit disappointed. It is more of a store to go in when you have a project in mind and want to specifically shop for. I was impressed of their shop (and still am), but it is not a shop to visit and relax when it is this busy. And since they sell their own patterns I looked for some crochet ones, but there were only two or three. Another disappointment unfortunately.

I also went to Le Comptoir. This was a teeny tiny store in the neighbourhood of Galeries LaFayette. They sell a small amount of yarn, lots of haberdashery and fabric and sewing patterns. Lovely for a quick look, but a bit small too actually sniffle everywhere. I do have a picture of the shop somewhere, but you have to excuse me, my battery died so I have to recharge it to get the picture...

And for further ideas? I got myself some books on embroidery and Tunisian crochet at Gibert Jaune, a very large bookstore, the Marie Claire Idees, and since I was in France I also got some Ultra Doux conditioner and shampoo to get my tendrils back in shape.

I love France!