. . . coming to you from the streets of Portugal.
It’s been a week since we flew back to the states from Portugal. Fortunately, I have many memories and lots of photos to remind me of the delightful time my husband and I spent cruising the Douro River and the many shore excursions we took to medieval hill towns and modern cities. Everywhere we went, images appeared that made me think of quilt blocks, appliqué designs, and even free motion quilting motifs.
When we got to Lisbon, our final destination in Portugal, the amount of gorgeous tile work I was seeing made my head spin. These three designs were on the walkway outside our hotel:
This one was on the floor of the main entrance to the hotel:
On the north bank of the Tagus River near the Monument to the Discoveries there’s a huge tile wind rose and map of the world charting Portuguese explorations. The map is embellished by wonderful designs that would look right at home on a quilt:
We visited the National Tile Museum dedicated to the azulejo, a glazed colored tile traditionally used in Spanish and Portuguese buildings. The museum houses examples dating from the 15th century to today. With the battery in my cell phone running low I took very few pictures but they’re enough to give you a sense of what I was seeing:
Tile work from the 21st century evoking a sampler quilt (a modern take on Dear Jane, perhaps?):
Half square triangles! Four-patch kaleidoscope blocks!
Inside the cafe at the museum:
Looking for the restrooms? They’re in this hallway:
Taking a city bus back to our hotel, we spied more contemporary tile work that may well have been made by the same artists whose work we saw at the museum:
Looking at these photos makes me very eager to get back to my various and sundry quilting projects. I hope to have something to show you very soon.
Wow Dawn, I love your photos! Every single one would make a beautiful and interesting quilt. My fave is the Dear Jane lookalike. Would love to put that one together!!
WOW!! These tile works are so amazing! Your pics are great and thank you for sending them! I totally believe that the tile artist copied his mom’s sampler quilt when making those tiles!!! Such eye candy it all was!!! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with from these pics! I know it will be awesome!!
What an incredible trip you must have had. Thanks for sharing your amazing photos. WOW…just beautiful!
Thanks for sharing your marvelous photos – I LOVE those tiles!
That’s almost an overdose of inspiration! Can’t wait to see what it all filters down to. You can call it “Pieces of Portugal”!
Great title, Reigh!! It also seems like it would be easy to transfer any of these tile vignettes to graph paper since the tiles themselves create the graph. The possibilities abound!!
Wonderful pictures! Are you inspired to make a blue & white quilt like the Dear Jane tiles????
Hi Karen. Not necessarily but I do think some individual blocks might wind up in a quilt some day!
So happy to see all this beauty! Inspiration for the mosaic tabletop I want to make this summer! Thanks for sharing, Dawn. I feel so lucky to see these images.
I’ve been reading some of your wonderful tutorials! I noticed “Dear Jane.” I clicked and much to my surprise it’s about lovely Portugal and all the tile designs your eyes and brain can take in! I remember when I was still a travel agent I was on a Fam Trip with about 15 other agents and we were led around (in a hurry) from point to point. If you stop to take a picture of something personal you were holding up the process.
Don’t miss those days! I would like to go back — once CDC can prove COVID is “all clear.” Boy, my wandering feet are itchy!