My Christmas present to you

Take on your walking shoes and follow me through the covered passages in Paris, hidden secrets for those who go to Paris for a very short stay, but a must when the wheather is very warm or very cold, like yesterday.

We'll start at Passage Verdeau, rue du Faubourg Montmartre.

Little shops on both sides, many bookshops, both antiquarian and recent editions, sometimes specialised in art, stamps, or traveling.

This shop had dressed a Chrismas table and yes the ghost with te camera is me......;

Another shop, with nothing but embroidery , kits, books and all sorts of needs for embroiderers.

It's called LE BONHEUR DES DAMES.

Then simply cross the street to enter the next Passage, JOUFFROY
Same atmosphere, i stayed quite a while to look at the books outside, beatiful art and travel books.

Then a few decorator shops, the cosy stuff with Toile de Jouy.

Hotel Chopin is very much saught after by an American clientèle, Paris lovers who want to avoid the big hotels that look all the same whereever you are in the world.

Pain d'Epice is nec plus ultra for doll house lovers.

Everything neccesary to construct your very own, it's a goldmine, wish i had the space to have one.

The cookie store, i resisted! yes!

Now we cross the Boulevard, just in front.




More interresting shops, a framing artisan decorated with teddy bears,

a nice and cosy bistro-tearoom.

A very special shop front with a wood carved deco over the front door

But the end is less lovely, and ends up frankly gloomy.

This is Place des petits Pères, close to the entry of GALERIE VIVIENNE.

Always when i passed by, the passage was crowded, now the shops were empty and silent, hardly a human being around, and allthough the archtecture is beautifull, i just passed by and did not want to stay.

Strange, really strange...........

I ADORE the little toyshop on the right, they sell all the sizes of a french doll brand, PETITCOLLIN.

The Palais Royal garden looked frozen and empty too on the shortest day of the year.

Let's end our walk with a glimps of the ceiling from the restaurant LE GRAND VéFOUR,

and i wish you all the best for the holidays, a happy new year, with a very good health, love, friendship, and peace in your mind and lots of energy to make stunning quilts.

LOVE, Will V in Paris

Christmas is coming, and it's jumping!

This is a sneak preview for C, who lives in the middle of France,and she will leave next wednesday at 4 in the morning to take her train and join us for a quilting bee.
Hope jou'll like te blocks C!

Anne Marie made us a baekeofe last sunday for the last quilting bee of the year,whow, french women are really good cooks!

My first Christmas present of this year, a lovely tree ornament as a Chrismas card, and the envelloppe was beautiful too!

Michèle is working currently on a sampler, as well as a pine burrow, and both are awesome!

A sampler from 12 cm blocks, no directions.

The overall blue shade is pure hasard.

Sylvie is working on schoolhouses, 40 cm

And drumrolls please for the other Sylvie, who's experimenting with woolens.

You know her already as a serial knitter and as she will spend Chrismas in the Alps, se her sweater she's knitting on:

She creates her own models, but the Aran motiv was found in a Japanese book.

She will definitely steal the show in Megève.



I think i have found a Christmas gift that will enjoy each and every one, so stay tuned!

Will V in Paris, bright and sunny but freezing!

PAMINA likes the quilt top i showed some days ago and asked if she could start one too :
YES Pamina, because i will never claim an original design.
I consider that all the geometric figures or designs have been invented thousands and thousands of years ago.
I strongly believe that every quilt lives its own life through the choice of fabric.
So go for it Pamina, and have fun like i had , but please show the result on your blog!

I also have a request:
On so many of the blogs i follow i see the fellow bloggers in the side bar, you can see if there is a new posting through a little picture, i would like to install my favorite blogs too, BUT HOW?
Your help will be much appreciated.
This posting is as boring as the wheather in Paris, windy rainy and dark............
Sorry, i'll do better next time!

I went to the craft show and came home with this:
a small piece of fabric with an angel, and a bigger piece, one meter, of dark brown decorator fabric, some olé olé ladies, kitschy, but how nice for a medallion quilt, and a dark brown back ground is very hard to find!

There was not much available for me:
to much of glittery christmas stuff,
jewellery, more kitsch, scrapbooking, even chocolates, and, oh yes, i baught some paint to pimp up old chairs.
You ask me about prices?
12euros only to get into the show, around 16 euros for a meter of quiltfabric, and you buy in a hectic atmosphere.
So i'm longing for the next craftshow in Paris , in February. It'll be all about sewing, knitting, embroidery and so on.

Some of the things i saw:

delicious BOUTIS from a Japanese lady living in France.

A pic from the SAJOU booth

Another SAJOU item

And the last one.

QUILTMANIA's booth.

QUILTMANIA

The last two ones are from MARIE CLAIRE IDEES.

Yeah!!!

How hard she worked this summer!

My friend Nicole T made this top after having seen JOES MEESTER's antique quilt in Quiltmania.

The background is a soft vanilla shade.

She works so quick and accurately; hard to believe...........;

Have a lovely weekend, all of you, Will V in Paris