Whoever Dies with the Most Fabric Wins

When I lived in New England, I saw a bumper sticker proclaiming, "Whoever Dies With the Most Fabric Wins." I slapped my thigh and gurgled in glee. Ha-ha-ha. Then I froze. Paranoia struck. How did They know about me? Had someone been snooping in my attic and uncovered my cache of 20 years' worth of miscellaneous fabrics "that I might do something with some day"? Then the happy realization, of course, that I simply was not alone in my textile-acquisition passion. Er, addiction.

I have always been so drawn in by the infinite possibility of cloth. I was already sewing my own teeny-bopper mini-skirts using leftover slipcover material by the time I was 12. And my dorm room one year had an entire jungle wall of lions and tigers hanging in floor-to-ceiling panels of 1970s sheeting fabric.

Those nascent artistic flames of fabric creativity were later fanned by years of purchasing Marie Claire Idées whenever I got my hands on a copy in the US. Creative nirvana.

After decades of accumulation, I eventually dispatched with all those cool fabrics, either in clever creations, or ultimately, by donating all the rest to the local Episcopal church rummage sale.

I had purged the fabric. Hurrah! It freed up a lot of brain space not to be hanging on to all that stuff. All those maybes. And I made a new vow: no more textile hoarding for me!

Then I moved to Paris.

And I discovered the Dreyfus Marché St. Pierre, in the eponymous textile quartier of Montmartre, which is where you must go if you want to win that contest. Six storeys of every kind of fabric that you can imagine. Prices all over the map, but always a bargain for what you get. And if you don't find what you want at the Dreyfus store, the smaller shops cramming the nearby streets abound in colorful, exquisite textiles at the most remarkable prices. Gabardines, silks, taffetas, flannels, jacquards, muslin -- you name it, it's all here.

I found pricey salmon-colored Lyon silk that I couldn't live without to use for curtains, and hung them up without sewing a stitch (I don't have my sewing machine in Paris). Clips, hoops a curtain rod: voila! The light they cast in the living room is sublime.

I snatched the last 10 meters of a bolt of beribboned polyester satin/silk that looks every bit as expensive as that soie de Lyon, but at one-fifth the price. It's dusty rose and kind of girly-swirly, so it became bedroom curtains.

Around the corner from Dreyfus at a little mercerie, I bought the curtain tie-backs for 3€ apiece -- compared to a 15€ price tag in department stores.

I also found close-outs on silky tassels which now hang from keys on closet doors and also my key chain: 1€ each.

Every time I set foot in Montmartre, I was inexorably drawn to the Marché St. Pierre, and I always came home with more fabric. A meter of exquisite embroidered silk to throw over the plastic boxes masquerading as a coffee table. Umpteen meters of a poplin with enormous yellow flowers that I simply had to adopt because it was only 1€ per metre. Perhaps I'll make a tenture murale, I dreamed. A perfect checkered waxed cotton that will make a great table cloth. Someday.

Finally I had to do a one-on-one self-to-self textile intervention. No more visiting the Marché St Pierre. Anymore! The temptation was greater than my oh-so-weak willpower. Instead of "Think of England!" my stoic cry was "Think of storage space!" The fabric ban lasted almost a year.

Then this week a dear fabric-addict American friend was in town, so I returned to le Marché St. Pierre. Just to show her around, of course.

Aw heck, there are greater sins than acquiring non-essential fabric. Right?

I returned home with leopard-print polar-fleece -- enough to make two throws.

Some cool African-print cottons for 2€50 per meter.

I took note of some Toile de Jouy I'd love to put in the living room alcove. A delicious butter-yellow Provencal print that I could make into aprons for Christmas presents. Some tulle I'd love to use for wrapping small gifts. That floaty batiste could surely be used somewhere. And...and...and.

I am lost in a another world.

I wonder. Is it just a coincidence that St. Pierre is French for Saint Peter?

The doors to this fabric emporium are not exactly pearly gates. But fabric lovers crossing the threshold here really feel as though they've died and gone to heaven.