While we were in Paris last week we made a trip to the flea market at St Ouen. This was always on Ellie’s to do list and due to the Versailles Palace being unfortunately shut on the Monday we made it and it was a little piece of textile heaven!

It was a very interesting experience generally- it is a huge market with lots of modern stalls and a big second hand market with everything from very expensive antique furniture to people sitting by the road with what looks like piles of the most random junk.

The textiles are wonderful! There were lots of costume dealers and three or four who specialised in antique textiles which were amazing. The first stall had the most amazing collection of whitework and lace goods including loads of baby clothes obviously late Victorian and early 20th century.

She did have some pieces of cross stitch as you can see in the red pile of stitching near the middle of the pic but most was work like the two pics below.