Next up ... trims!

Trims were high on my Paris shopping list.  They're another thing that I normally don't let myself buy without a project planned out, so just buying ones I liked without bringing any other criteria to bear (well okay, besides price) felt quite decadent.  Most of my trims were purchased at Mercerie Saint Pierre.  It is one of the larger fabric stores in the Monmartre area, and the trims are actually in a building next door to where the fabrics are.   In the photo above, the building with the trims and notions is in the foreground, but you can see the fabric store behind it.

Here again, my husband rescued me with his knowledge of French.  Rather than bring the trims to the cutting table, you must bring the cutter to the trims you want.  My husband helped me flag down a sales associate and conveyed the lengths I wanted.  Once your trims are cut, the sales associate holds them for you while you pay.  You bring a receipt back to her to collect your purchase.

Sooo, here are my selections:

I'm especially ecstatic about the three patterned bias tapes, as I have never seen such a thing for sale here in the US, outside of eBay auctions of vintage goods.  As for the beaded laces, I've never used any sort of lace before, but I loved these, and I'm sure they'll be the start of some sort of wonderful project.

I bought a few sewing-related implements at Mercerie Saint Pierre too:

 The two pairs of scissors came from there.  One can never have too many pairs of scissors, and these are pretty distinctive!  The square object is a tape measure, and it was purchased later, in Oxford, at a store called Octopus.

My husband had a few extra days in Paris while I was attending a conference for work at a chateau just outside the city.   When we were reunited for our ride on the Eurostar to England, he surprised me with more trim that he had picked up at a store called Entree des Fournisseurs (or at least that is what it said on the bag).  Here are his selections:

Didn't he do a great job?  Clearly my ravings about the bias tape from the previous store did not go unnoticed.  :)