Springtime in Paris

It was with great excitement and anticipation, that we (Katie and Carol) left Verteillac at 5 am last Monday morning to catch the TGV train to Paris. Les Soeurs Anglaises were having a day out, off to L'Aiguille en Fete, a hall crammed packed with all of our favourite things! Never mind the astronomic prices of Parisien railway coffee - or rush hour on the metro - nothing could dampen our fever for the textile exhibition. This is the first "trade" fair that they have organised that runs for three days before they open their doors to the public.

We finally arrived at the 'Grande Halle de la Villette' on the outskirts of Paris just before ten, and having attached our name badges we rushed forth into the hall of wonderful sewing and knitting things. The first stall we came upon was Selvedge where we had a long chat with the lovely Gemma and bought a few of those past issues of the mag that we'd always craved. Moving along we were accosted by a veritable feast of colour and texture, with stalls from all over the world including craftwork from Korea.........

........Holland, UK, Ireland and further afield. There was definitely something for everyone, from very fine cross stitch work to wonderful wooden knitting/ crochet going up to size 27 needles!..... and we thought size 12 was big! And then there was the gorgeous alpaca wool (and men!) from Italy, Adriafil , from whom you can buy as little 10 balls.

There was new mixed with old, vintage with modern, big and small.

There was no point fighting it..... we had to make a purchase.... or more. Couldn't help ourselves with all that tempting vintage fabric - Millpoint ; and then back to the 'Antiquites Brocante' just in case we'd missed something irresistable first time round - sadly they have no website, but worth a visit to the fair on its own. Many hours later and with purses much lighter, exhaustion began to take it's toll and we had to drag ourselves away to make the long trek homewards, (thank goodness we'd brought the suitcase, now cram packed with goodies).

Home in the dark but with renewed inspiration to get making. Our only regret was that Paris is just that little too far to return for the "punters' day later in the week, when we understand there were to be even more on offer for the enthusiastic stitcher..

WOW! what a day we had!