All buttons and no beadsa crafters trip to Montréal

We decided to take a small holiday and go to Montréal for a long weekend. Now that we're here it seems a little crazy because it is SO COLD. But we're still managing to have a wonderful time. The first B&B (called The Nightingale) was in Ingleside and it was a very comfortable stop before heading on to Montréal in the morning. It's in a beautiful Victorian home and we had a delicious fruit and Belgian waffle breakfast.

In Montréal we're staying in a B&B called Pierre et Dominique's and it's just great. It's in a very good location, lots to see around here and in the middle of everything. It borders on a park and there's lots of space and sun in our comfortable room.

I've had lots of fun shopping, which brings me to the alluring picture of buttons at the top of this post. Bradley noticed the store pictured below while we were wandering around, I had some idea that it was a bakery or something like that, though I did notice the ribbons waving at the top. It turns out it is the best button store ever. They have a HUGE bin filled with buttons and for $1 you can have a scoop full, but for $2 you can take your time and pick and choose and fill the same size scoop (all the buttons in the picture were $2). As you might guess I picked and choosed and was absolutely delighted with all the pretty buttons I found. They also have stacks of boxes with buttons to buy in sets, and ribbons and trim and some handmade bags. It's called Rubans, Boutons... which of course means Ribbons, buttons... The owner was very friendly and gave me a tip on a good fabric district. The ribbon on the right of this picture was from the button store, but the other two are from a store called Trimcité. This was my favourite store in the fabric district. It is similar to a ribbon store we have on Queen West in Toronto but much much cheaper. The pricing guide is very efficient, all the ribbon and trim is marked with a letter and there are charts everywhere saying the price per yard each letter corresponds to.
I've visited a couple of yarn stores, but nothing too exciting. The most interesting place is called Magasin de Fibre L.B. inc. They have big cones of yarn/cotton/wool blends and you can mix and match colours and fibres and they'll wind it together for you into a ball. It's really cheap, you buy it by the pound and most are well under $10/pound. What I found was even better, the cotton you see below is from leftovers from the cones - it's equivalent to a pearl cotton size 10 or so, and I bought all this in two grab bags for $4 (it's more than it looks like in this picture - each bag was a bread bag full). Wow!It seems like most of the stores have staff that speak French and English, but I'm finding my French is quite useful and I can understand everyone quite well. It's interesting to see how people figure out which language to use with you. So there you have it, a crafter's guide to buying crafts supplies in Montréal. If you are reading this and you live here, I'd love some tips on places to go!