Are the yarn shops of Madrid worth visiting?
Well, they are varied and so there will be something for everyone. I’ll guide you through the yarn shops that I visited so you know which yarn store to visit during your next trip to Madrid, Spain.
Here’s what I cover in this Madrid Yarn Crawl blog post:
- Best Premium Yarn Shop in Madrid
- Best Yarn Shop in Madrid for Katia Yarns (commercial Spanish brand)
- City Centre Yarn Shops in Madrid
- Best Madrid Yarn Shop for Wool
- Madrid Yarn Shop for Yarn Brand Options
- Madrid City Yarn Shops by Location
- Helpful Tips for Visiting Madrid
Best Premium Yarn Shop in Madrid
If you are looking for a beautifully curated yarn shop in Madrid, then Trizas and Strokes (My Knitted Closet) is the one for you. They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
It has a completely different approach from the other yarn shops I visited. The owner is a knitwear designer and their design samples are throughout the shop. All the designs are knitted in their own yarn brand – My Knitted Closet.
The shop is full of beautiful yarn blends where wool, mohair and cotton feature most heavily. I actually can’t remember seeing any yarn that had acrylic in it.
The colour palettes for the yarn were nicely curated, making it a very inviting and calm space to be in.
The person that served me was very helpful. I was measured to work out what bust size I needed for a Sendero Jumper kit I wanted to buy and there were no issues when I wanted to swap out the main colour for a different one.
My visit to My Knitted Closet was very positive and if I ever go back to Madrid again, this yarn shop would be on my revisit list!
Best Yarn Shop in Madrid for Katia Yarns
Katia seems to be the biggest commercial yarn company in Spain. It’s basically like the Spanish version of Rowan in the UK.
I have singled out this brand in this section because if you are after ‘local Spanish’ yarn on your holiday then you cant really go wrong with Katia Yarns. Yes they are commercially made, but lots of their yarn is made in Spain and some is made in Italy.
The Madrid yarn shop that had the best range of Katia Yarns was Tajiendo Madrid. They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
It was a real pleasure to be in this yarn shop – it is FULL of yarn. The owner was lovely and friendly and I was greeted with a warm welcome and was even asked if I was enjoying being in Madrid.
I visited on a Saturday morning and there was a small group of women in the back part of the shop crafting away whilst chatting and having fun. It was lovely to hear and brought a nice buzz to the shop.
The shop has the largest selection of yarns and I was able to squish blends that I didn’t even know they made. Tajiendo Madrid also carries some Mondial yarn and some DMC.
The back room of the shop has a focus on cotton and cotton blend yarns and there is a lot to choose from.
It’s the kind of yarn shop where you have to rummage through every basket and shelf to really get to see everything that there is on offer. I love this kind of yarn shop because I can always sniff out buried treasure.
I bought a lot of yarn in this shop. I am always looking for yarn substitutes with different price points for my patterns and Katia easily fits the lower cost yarn category, but the quality and range of fibres is excellent.
City Centre Yarn Shops in Madrid
If you don’t have a lot of time in the very centre of Madrid and want to quickly buy some souvenir yarn, then you have three options. I have listed them in my order of preference.
1 – Miss Kits is on one of the main streets in the city centre. They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
The shop is huge and is full of Spanish yarns from Casasol and Katia. They actually had the largest range of Casasol yarn that I came across in the six Madrid yarn shops I visited. Expect a lot of cotton and linen blends in a wide range of colours.
From the website, I had high hopes of finding skeins of yarn by Spanish yarn dyers. There were some La Bien Amie yarn, but that was about it.
The colours were lovely but a lot of the yarns were blended with acrylic and that doesn’t appeal to me.
The service was friendly and I did buy some Katia Mohair for a project and a ball of Casasol 100% bamboo to try out.
2 – Almacen De Pontejes is more than a shop, it’s a full-on old style haberdashery. They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
I didn’t buy anything from this shop, but the shop itself is an ‘experience’. There was even a queue to get in after the afternoon siesta reopening!
As you go through the door a member of staff asks what you are looking for and then directs you to the right part of the shop. Stock is behind haberdashery counters and you ask one of the many members of staff for the item you are interested in.
They had some Katia, Mondial, DMC and Adriafil yarns. I struggled to see all that was on offer because of the queue and to be honest, asking a man behind a counter if I can feel some yarn that I don’y know that I want isn’t how I like to shop.
I am glad I experienced this shop for five minutes but it felt like the craft shops of my childhood (40+ years ago) and I prefer a different yarn shopping experience.
If you do all sorts of crafting, then Almacen De Pontejes is probably one of those pilgrimage heberdashery shops that you will want to go to. Check their website to see just how many haberdashery things they sell – it’s impressive.
3 – Then there is Lanas El Gato Negro, a shop that is full of colour, cotton, lots of acrylic blends and ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ signs everywhere your eye can see. They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
This was not a shop that I enjoyed. Yarn is a very tactile thing and I need to touch it to see if want to work with it or not.
On the upside, there are QR codes for every yarn so that you can go online and get more details. Not great though if you are a tourist paying hefty mobile phone fees whilst abroad.
I didn’t take any photos of the inside of the shop. It wasn’t at all welcoming and I got the impression I would have been told off if I had.
So, if you are in the very centre of Madrid, looking for some souvenir Spanish yarn, my suggestion is to go to Miss Kits.
Best Madrid Yarn Shop For Wool
Bichus is the only yarn shop I have ever visited that has the entire range of Drops yarn. Given that many of the ranges of Drops yarn are wool-based, this makes Bichus the best yarn shop in Madrid for wool and wool blend yarns.
They also stock Katia, Mondial and had some hand dyed skeins of yarn by French dyer Lain’amouree
They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
This was a lovely friendly yarn shop. I visited on a Saturday morning and was told there was no need to rush, because they are open for hours.
If you want wool at a really good price or you want to feel the different types of Drops yarn available, this is the shop for you.
Bichus was also one of the few yarns shops I visited in Madrid that sold sock yarn (Tajiendo Madrid had a small selection of Katia 25g balls of sock yarn). Maybe knitted and crocheted socks aren’t a big thing in Spain? A ball of sock yarn is something I will squish into my suitcase so the I can have holiday souvenir socks.
Best Madrid Yarn Shop For Brands & Notions
Amimú seems to be the yarn shop in Madrid that is full of European yarn brands (Scheppjes, Rosarios4, Katia, Isager, Lana GROSSA, Urth…) They are on Instagram and their address and opening hours are here.
If you find yourself in need of knitting needles or a new crochet hook, then this shop is easily your best option.
Although I didn’t manage to visit it (I’m quite grumpy that I didn’t prioritise it over the city centre options tbh), I have scoured their website and they carry a lot of notions. This also seems to be the only shop with skeins of yarn hand dyed in Spain.
If I am ever back in Madrid, this yarn shop is the first on my list.
Madrid City Yarn Shops By Location
North East of Madrid City Centre
Bichus is on the Metro Red Line – Manuel Becerra stop. Monday – Friday 10.30am to 8.30pm, Saturday 11am – 2pm/ 4pm – 7pm. Calle de Benito de Castro 12, Salamanca, 28028, Madrid.
Tajiendo Madrid is on the Brown Line – Lista stop. Monday – Friday 10am – 2pm/ 4pm – 8pm, Saturday 10am – 2pm. No website, but click here for their Instagram account. Calle del General Díaz Porlier 40, Salamanca, 28001, Madrid.
Amimú is on the Brown Green & Grey Lines – Diego de Leon stop. Monday 11am – 1.30pm, Tuesday – Friday 10.30am – 2.30pm, 5pm – 8pm, first Saturday of the month 11am – 2pm. Calle Pilar de Zaragoza 50,
28028, Madrid.
South East of Madrid City Centre
Trizas and Strokes (My Knitted Closet) is on the Light Blue Line – Atocha stop. Tuesday – Friday 11am – 2pm, 4pm – 8pm, Saturday 11am – 2pm. Calle Fuenterrabía 3, 28014, Madrid
South West of Madrid City Centre
Miss Kits is on the Light Blue line – Anton Martin stop. Monday – Saturday 10am – 2pm, 4.30pm – 8pm. Calle Atocha 31, 28012, Madrid
Almacen De Pontejos is on the Red line – Sol stop. Monday – Friday 9.30am – 2pm, 5pm – 8pm, Saturday 9.20am – 2pm. Calle del Correo nº4, 28012, Madrid.
Lanas El Gato Negro is on the Light Blue line – Sol stop. Monday – Friday 10am – 2pm, 4.30pm – 8pm, Saturday 10am – 2pm. Calle de la Sal 2, Madrid.
Helpful Tips For Visiting Madrid
This was my first time in Madrid and I loved it. Here are some top tips that I would pass on to anyone visiting the city:
Transport in Madrid
- Madrid (Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas) airport is just on the outskirts of the city. It is very easy to get into the city using the Metro system. We bought a Tourist Ticket (you pay for the number of days that you will be in the city) because it included all of the city zone and the airport route.
- The Metro is very clean and seems to run very smoothly. It’s a great way to get around the city and we never waited more than 3 minutes for a metro to arrive.
Coffee & Food In Madrid
- The best coffee we found in Madrid was at [h]arina. We found a little stall in the Mercado De La Plaz food market (Salamanca area in NE of the city centre) and a cafe on Calle De Alfonso XII just outside Retiro Park.
- I’m not a massive fan of tapas (please don’t come for me) and really just wanted to eat some tasty salads and veggies. Honest Greens is THE place to go and they have locations all over Madrid. They started in Barcelona and have a place in Soho, London too. Amazing, fresh salads with veggie, vegan and GF options. It was so tasty that we ate there four times during a five day trip…
Outdoor Places to Knit & Crochet in Madrid
- Retiro Park takes up a chunk of the east of the city centre. It’s free to enter and has hundreds of benches and places to sit. I spent hours in the park, crafting and listening to an audio book in the sunshine.
- The National Archaeological Museum is in the NE quadrant of the city centre. As you face the building, there is a small garden with benches. There is also a cafe just inside the museum entrance, so you can take a coffee and slice of cake out there. The museum is free to enter on Sunday morning’s and has some amazing artefacts.
Other Yarn Stores in Madrid
A quick internet search shows that there are other shops in Madrid that sell yarn, like Bad Ass Knitters (Instagram). When I searched, they were either slightly further away from where we were based (there is only so much holiday time I can dedicate to yarn shopping) or didn’t have a website that I could peruse in advance.
So, whilst my list of Madrid Yarn Stores isn’t exhaustive, it covers that ones that are closest to the tourist areas and offer a good mix of different yarns.
