Whilst shopping in Madrid, we found the best fabric shop ever! Situated on Gran Via is the Julian Lopez shop, and I think that Beth and I could have spent about a week in there. They had the most amazing selection of fabrics and then a home section upstairs too! It was simply beautiful – a crafting heaven!

These were the window displays – so inviting! It was like being in a sweet shop!

I managed to restrain myself when it came to purchases, although I could have bought the whole shop! I settled for a metre of this pink fabric which I’ll use for a quilt that I’m planning to make:

And I also bought two metres of this lovely fabric – I think I might make a maxi skirt or possibly a dress out of it:

It will probably be some time before I start making a skirt – I’ve got the wedding waistcoats to finish first!

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On Sunday morning, Beth took me to El Rastro – the most popular market in Spain. The atmosphere there is amazing, an if you’re planning a trip to Madrid then it’s a must see! Be careful with your bag though, as pickpockets are everywhere. I bought a few things at the market – a couple of bowls, a bag and a necklace, so quite a good haul! Here are a few photos of our trip there.

And when you’ve finished shopping, there’s always time for a coffee and a bite to eat!

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Last weekend I visited my gorgeous friend (and bridesmaid) Beth, who has recently moved out to Madrid. We needed to go bridesmaid dress shopping and Madrid seemed like a good place to go to do that! The dress is all sorted but I can’t show you just yet – but I thought I’d share some of my photos. We packed quite a bit into a weekend!

Our first destination was Mercado de San Miguel – a really amazing market where you can buy pretty much everything food-wise, sample the sangria (although I had iced tea!) and generally soak up the atmosphere. Fabulous!

The following day, we shopped in the morning before doing some more exploring – starting in Buen Retiro Park. There is a beautiful rose garden there, and one or two of them were in bloom. We even spotted some cute ducklings!

We also visited the Crystal Palace and spent ages taking photos there. Inside, there was a lovely art installation.

Here we are enjoying the sun (briefly!) – it was a pretty chilly weekend!

That evening we went to a little tapas place, which seemed to be very popular with the locals! The food was amazing – we had feta and caramelised red onion tortilla with some chicken and some ham and cheese croquettes. Yum!

This is already quite a long post so I’ll write about our visit to El Rastro in another post, but the first photo gives you a sneaky peek!

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