Travels and Tiles

It is hard to believe that it is 2020! I (Kara) am not sure where the last year has gone, let alone the last decade. Our past year has been busy with travel through 9 different, inspiring countries and 3 family weddings—two of which were our own children. Our most recent offspring to tie the knot wanted to have a small, intimate, destination wedding in Spain. Given our location in Germany, we decided to drive down to Barcelona for the wedding, stopping along the way in France to break up the trip. This of course gave me plenty of opportunities to snap pics of all sorts of inspiration. Even with all the variety of things we saw, the tiles were the most inspiring. We saw a few in Spain but our oldest daughter traveled on to Portugal and knowing her mother, took tile pictures there too!

So many of the tiles contain ideas for appliqué and are very reminiscent of the paper cuts in Baltimore Album quilts. Our current project, Woodland Reverie (which we will be teaching this year at the Academy of Appliqué), has at least 3 blocks that were influenced by tiles. Here are some of the Portuguese and Spanish tiles and maybe you will be inspired by them!

Portuguese Tiles from Lisbon

What a gorgeous center medallion this would be!

Lots of bias strips anyone?

This one would make a great paper cut.

Can you see a 9-patch in this one?

Maybe a combination of English paper-piecing, embroidery, and appliqué

Appliquéd wreaths.

This might be fun for piecing!

Possibly some border inspiration here.

Another medallion potential.

Not necessarily inspiring for quilts...but my daughter knows me well!

Spanish Tiles from Barcelona and Valencia

Ribbon flowers would be amazing with this design.

This one is reminiscent of a Pennsylvania Dutch fraktur

Tile seen at the Torres winery, Barcelona

So many ideas and an old favorite—a pinwheel

What a great border design this would be!

Not just one tile, but a beautiful mosaic.

Another great border idea.

Not all the inspiration came from tiles. Just walking the streets of Valencia, Spain and Avignon, France yielded some ideas.

Beautiful tile work on a building in Valencia.

Not tiles, but painted and etched.

Inspiration abounds in this amazing church in Valencia!

That window!

A great medallion.

Embroidery and Ribbon ideas.

Love this doorway in Avignon, France

Hopefully you have been as inspired as I was by the tiles and sights from these European places. I'm looking forward to incorporating some of that inspiration into future designs. I am grateful that our daughter chose such a magical place for her wedding. Not only did it give me inspiration, but I can't wait to go back and see what other influences Spain might have on our designs!

I had to post the reason we were there 😍!
Photo courtesy of Aneta Lehotska photography