Lights and Mulled Wine… the Holiday Season in Portugal

November 30 was the official kick-off to the holiday season in Porto - the city holiday lights were turned on, the giant tree in front of city hall was lit, a concert in the city hall square where a large stage has been erected and fireworks! The Portuguese take their holidays seriously, always happy to get out and spend time with family and friends.

It’s colder here than in So. California so when the hubby and I went to the Christmas market on Sunday, I went in coat, hat and muffler. By the time we were finished warm gloves as well. At the market I enjoyed a couple of firsts, my first mulled wine (yes, please!) and a special treat called a bombocas, not a cake as I had guessed, but a gooey, marshmellowy filling surrounded by chocolate and sprinkled with coconut. The contrast of the crisp chocolate coating and the gooey center was lovely and lets just say, it’s a good thing they only show up for the holidays or I would be in big trouble!

As we made our way toward the metro station we discovered our favorite nata shop has a second location in Porto - that called for a stop. Pastel de Nata - a yummy custard treat in a flaky pastry shell is the official dessert of Portugal. They are everywhere. I like mine with a dusting of cinnamon. At Manteigaria they make them by hand all day long and they are always fresh, but this was the 1st time I had one so fresh that the filling was still hot, OMG best nata ever!

It was lovely walking through the city seeing all the lights. The streets each have their own designs, ornaments, angels, bows, celestial planets and it is a delight as you move from street to street seeing them festooned. The Aliados metro, near city hall, was our destination but we couldn’t help but stop to enjoy a bit of the free concert taking place on the stage. They were singing pop Christmas songs and everyone from toddlers to grannies were singing and dancing along. I got a few more pictures of the city hall plaza tree and lights then it was time to get back home and curl up with the pups.

Our apartment is small, with almost no flat surfaces, so this year decorating took no time at all - unlike the week or more it took me to do just the inside at my Glendora home. We do have a small tree and I still want to add ornaments (I had a plastic tote box full of my most prized ornaments included in our crates from California) but I’m sure I will get that done this coming weekend.

Baking cookies has been a bit of a challenge, no Nestles chocolate chips or Hershey’s baking chocolate to be found, but I have been testing substitutes and have gotten pretty close to the flavors I remember. I’ll also need to make my cream of mushroom soup for green bean casserole from scratch and the green beans are large and flat…. but we adapt. Life is good here.

I wish you all the joys of the season and a happy new year.

Porto the first big bumps....

No matter how good the marriage, the honeymoon has to end sometime. Or so they tell me. I am still in the honeymoon, but that’s not to say there haven’t been a few bumps along the way.

Moving to Portugal requires applying for a visa in person at the consulate office, in our case in San Francisco, followed by an in-person visit to the immigration office in Portugal. We were somewhat lucky in that our immigration appointments were scheduled before we left California and were included in our visa’s. Portugal has had a change in government officials and has changed the entire system for immigration since we started preparing for our move and many people are still waiting to get an immigration appointment even scheduled.

My husband was scheduled for the immigration office in Lisbon (the capital city 3 1/2 hours away from Porto) at 2:30 on July 10, I was scheduled for my appointment at 10 am on July 11 in Santarem, about a hour from Lisbon. Because of the language and cultural challenges we hired an attorney to accompany us to our Lisbon appointment. We traveled to Lisbon the day before our appointment so we would be sure to be on time. There we were, on time, sweating like crazy - it was sooo hot that day, but feeling worse for our attorney who was in a business suit. Made our way up to the window only to be told that all the afternoon appointments were cancelled! Apparently, each appointment is booked for 15 minutes but takes 1 hour to complete. Once the people scheduled for the morning have arrived it takes until the end of the day to complete their application processing. Highly disappointing, but we had been warned by our attorney it could happen when he met us at the immigration office. I personally can’t say it was a complete loss, the hotel was pleasant, had good AC and we discovered a FABULOUS Italian resturant nearby where we had both dinner the night before and lunch that day, it was that good.

Disappointed but not totally dejected, we gathered up our luggage crossed our fingers and headed on the train to Santarem. We hired a bolt to take us to the hotel (their version of uber) went to check in and found they didn’t have a reservation for us. I panicked just a little since they had no rooms available, then my husband realized he had mixed up the hotels - we were actually booked somewhere else. Back in a bolt…

I will say Santarem is adorable! Once we got to the correct hotel we had time to explore a bit.

The train station had tiles depicting buildings and scenes from the city and history. It was fun to then see some of them in person.

Fortunately, my visit the next day went fine and I was approved for my residency. We were warned that it could take up to 3 months for my residency card to arrive but I was delighted to receive it in the mail 3 weeks later. Unfortunately at the time I received my card, we were still waiting for them to re-schedule my husbands cancelled appointment. Which meant, I was now free to leave the country, but my husband wasn’t.

A fun thing we did do while waiting… for a new appointment, for our pallets, for our couch, was attend a craft festival in Villa do Conde a town about 30 minutes or so north of Porto and one we have talked about possibly buying a home in. The festival held in a large park, has artists and crafts persons from all over Portugal, representing the various traditional arts. Pottery, lacemaking, wool felt, basket weaving, leather work, shoe making, and more. I resisted purchasing anything I couldn’t eat. With our stuff yet to arrive and still not much furniture, I didn’t know if there would be room for anything decorative. But it was fun to look! The town boasts a roman aqueduct wall, and we went with our new, super fun friend, Gwen.

6 then 8 then 10 weeks passed and still no pallets. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I was getting very tired of the few clothes I had packed in my suitcase and didn’t really want to buy more just in time for our stuff to arrive. Also the 45 day deadline for our couch had come and gone and no amount of phone calls or emails was getting us anywhere.

It was August, vacation time in Europe and evidently EVERYONE stops working. We knew our pallets had arrived in Rotterdam, but we still didn’t know how long it would take to get them to Porto. Another 2 weeks passed and we received word that they had cleared customs and they gave us a delivery date. Hooray!

The moving company we had planned to use was of course ON VACATION, but in the perfect alignment that sometimes happens, a woman had given me the number for her moving company that morning - apparently our pallets were on the same ship! We arranged to have 3 guys to unpack the pallets and take the plastic packing boxes upstairs to either the 1st floor living area (2nd floor in the US) or the 2nd floor bedrooms (3rd floor US) and no, there is no elevator. About 1/2 the shipment was fabric and supplies for my sewing room not to mention my rather large sewing machine! We re-arranged our schedule and waited anxiously for our things to arrive. And waited, and waited. Nothing. No call. No truck. My husband was able to determine that one of the pallets was missing and appeared to be somewhere in Spain. He was afraid to tell me which one. I tried to remain calm and let him sort it out. The next morning he woke me up early saying “I think the pallets are here”. Again, no call or warning, and now we had no one lined up to unload. My husband managed to reach the mover who had been on standby the day before. The owner was literally boarding a plane to Greece but bless him, managed to get 2 guys to our house in an hour. The pallets were delivered 1 at a time so we were more or less able to get 1 unloaded before the next arrived so we didn’t run out of space on the sidewalk.

Below is my new sewing studio before and after the arrival of our pallets. It’s a bit more put together now. I’ll share that in the next blog post.

By now we had added a dresser and nightstands to the bedroom, dining table (its own Ikea adventure) a glass fronted cabinet in the living room, dining chairs as well as a desk and tables for my sewing room (some still needing assembly), but at least we had someplace to put the things that arrived on the pallets. But, still no couch.

I did point out that it would have been much harder to find someplace to put all the plastic tubs and boxes from the pallets if we did have the couch, but my husband did not find that a convincing argument. We were all tired of sitting in chairs. I would sit in a chair with my feet up on another chair and our terrier Stitch in my lap. In other words I WAS THE COUCH. It was getting very old. Finally one of our Portuguese friends took pity on us and took things into her own hands. Funny how none of my calls or emails got any results. However once Alexandra got involved I had a call with a firm delivery date within 24 hours. Not only did they deliver it on the promised day, she insisted they assemble it for us for free. (pity she didn’t get the delivery charge refunded, but let’s not quibble)

So now September 6, 3 months after we ordered it, we had a couch. Our pallets arrived August 27, 3 months after they were picked up in Glendora. It took longer than expected but we were beginning to feel at home.

Porto, stage II

When we packed up our 2 1/2 pallets of things we wanted to ship to our new home. U-pack We ship quoted 4-6 weeks delivery in Portugal. Now after a month in our new country, we find that the pallets are still in South Carolina waiting to be loaded onto a ship.

We are continuing to go out shopping nearly every day, either for food or items for the apartment, but we are taking some time out to visit friends and see a bit of our new city. I love architecture so my camera roll fills quickly on our jaunts around town…

…not to mention my need to photograph all the pretty tiles that cover the buildings.

One of the many reasons I wanted to make this lifestyle change was to be able to spend more of my time on my artwork. One of the first things I did when we arrived was look up art galleries for openings we could attend. The first gallery that caught my attention was an artist collective that was having an opening that weekend.

I was a little nervous to attend since we don’t speak more than a couple of words of Portuguese. I took a deep breath and attended anyway. As I suspected, most everyone was speaking Portuguese. I did catch one conversation and when it reached a lull, I piped in “I’m afraid I was eavesdropping - I heard you speaking English - I just moved here and I don’t speak any Portuguese” It turned out the woman I had eavesdropped on was the artist’s daughter. After a brief conversation she insisted that we meet her mother, Maria Manuela Silva, who’s art, sculpture - watercolors - photography, was surrounding us. Maria (pictured below with my husband) is a warm, lovely woman who introduced us to several of her friends in attendance who could speak at least some English. In addition to the artwork on display, Maria had invited a vocalist to preform, named Aswin Barros (below in black and white) and he did an excellent medley of what he called “spiritual music”.

For a large city, Porto feels like a small town. Later that night Aswin and his crew, arrived at the same resturant where my husband and I were having dinner, 5.5 kilometers from the gallery where we met. Two days later, I ran into him on the street around the corner from our apartment. Since the day of the opening both Aswin and Maria have become good friends.

A week or two after we met, Aswin invited us to another event he was in. This time a combination of art and fashion where he would be acting as a model. Images of the paintings were printed onto fabric, fashioned into clothing and then were modeled runway style during the exhibit of the art. That is where I learned to be careful about what is being served… I poured a standard glass of what I assumed was red wine, only to discover when I took my first sip - it was PORT! For those who aren’t familiar, Port is a fortified wine, somewhat closer to hard liquor in alcohol content and usually served in very small glasses (it’s also very tasty and somewhat sweet - my preference is a 10 year tawny)

Since arriving in Portugal we have become far more social. Back in Southern California our friends were spread all over. Our Son lived an hour away, my best friend was 30 minutes by freeway (without traffic) getting together with friends needed to be planned a week or more in advance. I suppose it also helps that most of the friends we are making here are also retired.

I have joined a very active expat community and my husband belongs to a different one. Between the 2 groups we attend “meet-ups” 4-5 times a month, and could attend 4-5 times a week easily if we wished. As one of the organizers said “If you are bored in Porto, it’s your own fault” in addition to the 2 art events I mentioned we’ve attended 2 concerts, a cider tasting, an opera, 5 more gallery exhibit openings, the grand opening of a Mexican resturant, and had coffee, lunch or happy hour get togethers with friends both old (from previous trips) and new.

Glendora, where we lived, was about a hour drive from downtown Los Angeles, 45 min from Hollywood, even the nearest resturant was a 5 minute drive or 20 min walk. Here so much is in walking distance. After the Opera, it took less than 15 minutes to walk back to our apartment.

I will admit I’m not thrilled with carrying my big bags of groceries home and up the stairs and one day I did complain that after I go to the butcher, the bakery and the grocery store I don’t have any energy left to cook. Not to mention having to go to the laundromat or figure out how to vote in this so important election. Oh, and then there was the surprise I felt when I saw the pork being delivered to the butcher (the image may be triggering to those of us who are used to our meat being parceled and cello wrapped).

All that considered, I delight in the lifestyle. Things are slower in a good way. I love that we are beginning to be recognized as part of the neighborhood. Just the other day, one of our neighborhood butchers waved to me, he was spending his break in the corner park as we were walking the dogs.

Having dogs is a great ice breaker - everyone loves to stop and give them a cuddle. Walking them gets us out into the city every day. We have a small park at the end of the street and a larger one about 15 minutes away.

Our Son was able to visit us in July - he works remotely for his company in Los Angeles and we were able to see him for at least part of every day he was in town. He introduced us to some brew pubs and helped deliver our TV stand (another thing that is challenging when you don’t have a car) we were able to celebrate his 34th birthday and watch the opening of the Olympics while he was here. We had 2 actual chairs + our folding chairs, now we could entertain! No, that wasn’t his real birthday cake, my husband has a quirky sense of humor.

Every great adventure contains at least a couple of hiccups… I’ll tell you about those in the next post.

Porto, the first month....

As I am writing this we have been in Porto just a bit over 4 months. I am going to break it down into segments, unlike my rant about the final months in California before the move.

We arrived in our new city on May 28th quite blurry eyed from the flight. Bringing our two pups, Lilo and Stitch with us meant we had to have a veterinarian check them at the airport in Porto. Our little Stitch was grumpy from the long flight and wouldn’t let the vet touch him. But, the kind Vet let us depart the airport with stern instructions to see a local Vet and get their check up and dog passports faxed to him within the week!

The apartment we rented in Porto was unfurnished, except for a bed, so we stayed in an AL (a VBRO in Portuguese) for the first 3 weeks. It was tiny but did have a couch (not one big enough for all 4 of us) a kitchen with plates, pots and pans, plus sheets and pillows for the bed. As we had none of these things in our apartment, we needed to figure out where to shop and get busy!

Porto is full of inexpensive cafes and restaurants so for the first week we mostly ate out. It still blows my mind that we can go to a traditional Portuguese sit down resturant and have a lunch consisting of a generous entree with sides, wine and dessert for 10 Euro, that’s less than a meal at McDonald’s in LA! Summer in Porto is lovely, with temps in the high 70’s to low 80’s, there is considerably more humidity than Los Angeles, my T-shirts stayed in the closet while I relied on loose cotton and linen tops and capris.

Grocery shopping was the first thing to conquer, we had visited the country a few times and did some cooking then so it wasn’t brand new. We knew we could get some favorites like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and sliced ham and cheese. They cook much more from scratch and don’t have a lot of frozen entrees or canned goods. The first thing I purchased for our apartment was an Instant-pot. I had one in California, but rarely used it since I also had a crock pot, rice cooker and even a pressure cooker. But with a much smaller kitchen having one multicooker made much more sense. I managed to purchase some beef at the butcher (an adventure in language limitations in itself) and wanted to make a pot roast. Humm, no French onion or cream of mushroom soup. No Campbells at all. Google to the rescue! Once I figured out how to make mushroom cream sauce from scratch, I couldn’t help but think about all the years I wasted using the inferior canned stuff!

While we were figuring out how to cook, we were shopping! We needed everything, furniture, dishes, bedding. I never thought I could dislike shopping, but it WAS uncomfortable. I had just spent the last year NOT buying anything because I knew we would be moving and selling almost everything we already had, I had no reason to buy more. Now, having to do so much shopping was a shock to my system. The first thing my husband bought was a TV, I simply let him get what he wanted. Everything else became a negotiation. I’d forgotten what it was like to try to furnish a home, with us both having different styles… it’s rough! Now we had an empty apartment with a TV … progress?

Initially we tried to purchase Portuguese products. Simple enough for our dishware (pictured above) but the stores don’t stock furniture, generally it has to be ordered and takes 6-8 weeks for delivery. Not so great when you have nothing. We found a couch at a Portuguese shop and ordered it, with the promise it would be ready in 45 days max, we paid and additional 89 euros to have it delivered upstairs to our living room (ouch!)

The weekend we moved into our apartment coincided with the festival of Sao Joao. It is a major street party with children and adults carrying large plastic hammers and bonking each other on the head with them. I have no idea what that has to do with St. John! The kids are up late and once the sun goes down (around 9 pm this time of year) people light paper lanterns and send them up into the sky. I made a wish on mine and sent it up from our tiny balcony. (Then prayed it wouldn’t get caught in the trees!) You can hear bands playing and the smell of sardines roasting on small grills fill the air. We still didn’t have any real furniture, but we did have 2 folding chairs, towels and bedding, some kitchenware and an organized cutlery drawer, we were on our way.

Portugal, continued...

We have rented an apartment and established residency! In November David and I traveled back to Porto to apartment hunt. We had to kiss a lot of frogs, which took up most of our time there, before we found our lovely apartment. We had a wishlist and this one ticked nearly all the boxes and had the plus of being in a lovely 3 unit vintage building in an ideal neighborhood. Our unit is a duplex on the 1st floor (2nd floor in US vernacular) so we have the 3 windows that look out on the trees. Its like being in a treehouse. The bedrooms (2, one for sleeping, one for sewing!) are on the top floor, which is set back a bit so you can’t see it from the street, it has a very small balcony and a view of the rooftops. The apartment itself was fully renovated 2 years ago.

We did manage a bit of time to visit with friends and see more of the city. The Portuguese take the Christmas holiday seriously! We arrived a few days before Thanksgiving and the trees and decorations were in full swing (which I feel fine about since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving) then on December 1, the city’s light displays are turned on. The square in front of city hall comes alive with a huge tree that has a changing light show and white lights wound through the trees lining the square. Throughout the neighborhoods there are white lights that swag over the streets, lighted images attached to streetlight posts and oversized light up trees and ornaments everywhere you look. The weather is crisp - but it doesn’t snow. We did get some rain but just enough for me to get to use my beautiful umbrella with the Tiffany glass, poppy design that I bought at a museum store in Cleveland, Ohio when I traveled there to tape my Quilting Arts episodes.

If you geek out on architecture like I do, it’s hard not to bump into people on the street while rubbernecking one beautiful building after another. We still have details to attend to in California, I am currently packing up and preparing the house for sale. The painters come next week and there is still much to do to clear the decks for them. There are also more things to do for our visa but I have faith all will come together in the end. I have so many more photos and videos I wish to share with you, but painters don’t wait, so I guess you will have to, until then….

Hugs!

Re-post of Easy Snap Bag

Re-posted from November 2017

I love to make these little bags from the quilted fabric left over from making my “Cutting Mat Tote Bags”
you can make them any size you want. The instructions that follow make a “snap bag” approx. 5 1/2″ x 7 1/2″ finished.

Snap Bag

To make your snap bag, you will need:
1) 1 piece of quilted fabric 8″ x 11″ (my quilted fabric is the same design on both sides)
2) 2 binding fabric pieces 3 1/2″ x 8″
3) 2 prairie point fabric pieces 3 1/2″ square
4) 2 pieces of 1″ wide metal tape measure 7 1/4″ long with the ends rounded and cut edges taped

Start by folding your binding pieces in half lengthwise and pressing.
Take your prairie point pieces and fold them in half lengthwise. Press.

With the raw edges facing up fold each edge in to the center to form a triangle.

With the “wrong” side of the 8″ x 11″ fabric facing you on the table align the raw edges of your folded binding strips up with the raw 8″ edges of your snap bag, pin in place and stitch with 1/4″ seam allowance. (not shown)

Press stitching to set then press binding up. Binding shown stitched and pressed.

Turn your quilted fabric over and wrap the binding around to the front pinning in place. The binding should come down over the front edge about 1 1/8″ find the center and tuck the prairie points under the binding edge about 1/4″ and pin. Top stitch close to the edge of the binding to stitch binding and prairie points. Reverse side should have a finished edge (not raw edge) of about 1/4” of binding (see finished inside photo below)

Photo above shows correct direction of curved side of tape measure, but it is easier to sew the 1st side and then insert as described below.

Fold your snap bag in 1/2 “right sides together” aligning the binding edges.(not shown) On one side only Stitch 1/4″ seam. Insert each of the metal tape measure pieces under the bindings sliding them all the way into the pocket. The rounded side of the tape measure needs to be on the outside (right side) of the snap bag, so working from the the inside (wrong side) slide it in so the inside curve faces you and the outside curve faces the front. Make sure its the same for both sides of the snap bag.
Stitch the other side closed using 1/4′ seam allowance. Finish by zig zag stitching the raw edges.
Turn right side out and carefully poke out the corners to make nice and flat and square.

Photo of inside of bag, straight stitched sides with edges zig zag finished. Ready to turn right side out. Red stitch line shows the topstitching of the front binding edge approx. 1 1/8” down from the top edge.

These little bags are great on the go and make terrific gifts. I have one I use as my binding tote with scissors needles and binding clips. They make great make-up bags and travel bags. I’ve make them in the size of eyeglass cases and have one I use as a pencil case. You really can’t have too many. Enjoy!

Make room in your life for good things to enter

This months mini quilt is my “prompt” for 2023. As my husband and I move forward with our intention of relocating to Portugal in 2024 we will be downsizing to live a bigger life. Making room will be our mantra in the coming months as we empty our house of belongings, of lots of “things” that no longer serve us and that we would not even consider taking with us. After nearly 22 years in this house there has been a lot of accumulation! Our cabinets, garage and my studio are all packed solid with “stuff”.

My studio also contains a lot of unfinished projects. 2 years of my online Rettabug’s UFO Club have helped me to complete a big chunk of those projects. This year as I make my list of 9 projects to finish by the end of November, I’ll be looking at my remaining projects (still quite a few more than 9) and asking the same questions I’m asking about all my possessions, “Do I LOVE this?, Does it spark joy?, Would I take it with me when we move?” only projects that pass this 3 question test are going on my UFO Club list. We draw the 1st number for this years round of UFO Club on March 1, so there is still time to join us if you have projects you want to finish with a “support group” you can find the details here. Rettabug's UFO Club

I created this mandala design with room to add not only color but some of your own personal expression within the mandala itself. To test out my ideas for adding additional “flair” I printed the design on paper, and looked at mandala designs on Pinterest to get ideas for the details - the swirls, lines and dots that I added inside and outside of the original image. I tried a few things I didn’t like (that’s why working ideas out on paper is a good idea!) but I did achieve a design I love and feel adds to the overall look. I then added colored pencil to my paper drawing.

I almost always color a paper version before the fabric one, for the same reason I tested the ink designs on paper, paper is much cheaper than fabric. I’d much rather make my mistakes on paper! I printed the design onto the inkjet printer sheet, then I used a micron pen to draw the details I had decided on, moving quickly to avoid bleeding. When the ink designs were complete I covered the image with a piece of parchment paper, my preferred “press cloth” and pressed the ink to set it. I didn’t want to take a chance the ink would smear when I colored over it.

This is the way I typically audition mini quilt border fabrics, I fold them into a roughly 12” x 12” square and place the trimmed mini quilt design on top. For this mini I auditioned 3 different fabrics for the border and I had a hard time choosing between the middle fabric and the one on the right.

In the end I felt the fabric on the right, made the design “pop” just a bit more and that made the decision. All the ink and coloring was done on a Friday afternoon. Choosing the fabrics, adding the borders, layering, quilting and binding was done the following afternoon. I find it so satisfying to be able to complete a project, especially one that flows and comes together easily and well.

If you want to create space for new projects to come in or just make space in your sewing room with fewer boxes or bins of unfinished projects, please join us in UFO Club. It’s fun and there are prizes, but the true prize is the space you will create and the projects you will finish.

My mini quilt will be displayed where I can see it everyday to keep me moving toward my hearts goal, to make space in my life - and I look forward to the good to come.

Portugal, the beginning....

To begin at the beginning. Sometime in June… or was it May? My husband mentioned that a coworker of his and their wife, were traveling to Portugal to scope it out with the intention of moving there in a few years. That caught my attention in a BIG way. First, I know the couple and consider them very savvy, if they think it’s a good place to retire, then it’s a good place to retire. Second, I LOVE Europe and it has been a dream of mine to live there since my 1st visit to Switzerland in my early 20’s. Digging a little deeper into Portugal we see it is a fascinating place with a great deal of history and beauty, and a population that is aging out. Politically stable, extremely safe with a highly rated health care system all very important to, well I’ll admit it, seniors like me.

My husband is getting ready to retire in the next year and has been mumbling about moving out of California, as much as we love it, but to where? So, in July we arranged a 3 week visit to scout out various cities with the idea in mind, would we want to live here?

The short answer is YES, not completely decided yet, but pretty firmly in the camp of yes, we will be moving, ideally to Porto, Portugal. Come along on our adventure.

Porto in particular is known for its Art Nouveau architecture, much of the city being built during the rise of its famous beverage, Port wine. There is a mixture of older and newer buildings as well giving it that delightful European flavor.

We are all wired differently, I’m the kind of person who loves art, and architecture, given the choice between visiting Manhattan or Juneau, I’ll take Manhattan. I am far more interested in the man-made, over the natural. I think also, since Los Angeles is as I like to say, “about 15 minutes old”, and most of it built up in the last 60 years, I am fascinated by places where buildings constructed 300 years ago, and more are still in use. I love the slower pace in Portugal, where people take the time to really enjoy life. Where not everything is about work, job prestige, what kind of car you drive. Or for that matter needing to drive at all. Where I live, you need a car to get anywhere. I’m looking forward to living in a walkable city. Porto is a big little city, more like Pasadena in feel than Downtown LA, with trolleys running up and down the narrow streets and situated on a river. This California girl never likes to get too far from water.

The buildings with their tile facades are like jewel boxes, each more beautiful than the last and their patterns and designs sends my quilters heart aflutter. I see endless possibilities in them for both traditional and art quilts. There is one drawback I did find, quilting itself has not been a Portuguese art form. I did find a couple shops on the internet, luckily one charming one in Porto itself, but the vast selection of fabrics available to me where I live, well that is not the case there. As the shop owner said, quilting is just getting started there. Which is an opportunity to get in and help them expand quilting.

So much of what I saw in Portugal really set my quilters brain on FIRE! Everything from the designs in the cobblestone walkways to the tiles on the walls screamed quilts to me.

Some of the designs I saw at the tile museum which were many hundreds of years old ARE traditional quilt designs used today and a few that aren’t could or should be!

You know I am an art quilter at heart, but some of these have me excited about making bed quilts and throws again! I’m a sucker for chain designs but photos 4 and 5 have me intrigued 4 would be simple enough to do, 5 a bit more challenging but worth it!!!

I am preparing a video tour of the tile museum in Lisbon, Portugal. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube cannel so you don’t miss any of my tutorials and tours. lauretta crites - YouTube

Remembering to smell the flowers

Just as most of my pattern designs were created because of my personal need for a purse, bedspread, or better way to carry a cutting mat, my mini quilts are frequently the result of what I need to remember or to practice.

With the roller coaster ride that the last 2 years have been, and the uncertainty of the world around us it becomes all too easy to get caught up in the news and the events and forget to really take in the beauty, the love and the blessings in our everyday lives. It becomes easier and easier to focus on “what is” the rising gas prices, the war in Ukraine, the supply chain challenges (no McMuffins at McDonalds?!?) Remember to smell the flowers is a message to myself to remember to hone in on how I want to feel, and of how important it is to focus on what is good and right in life. To remember that, even when it seems there is turmoil all around us, we have the power to be joyful.

The ROAD Report

I will admit up front, I debated heavily whether to attend the show this year or not. Los Angeles County was still having high rates of infection from omicron and I really didn’t need anything having attended Quilt Show Reno in June and Houston Festival in October. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who decided to stay home, and after getting attendance reports from my former A Couple of Old Broads business partner, Cindy, who was there with the booth, I decided to brave it.

Don’t expect a balanced gallery of quilts - I’m an art quilter and I mostly photograph what I like! That being said I hope you enjoy these photos of quilts that caught my eye at the Road to California Quilt show this year.

Top row: Not Today - Kestrel Michaud, W. Melbourne, FL; In Perfect Harmony - Sandra Mollon, Valley Springs, CA; Woodland Wilds - Ann Horton, Redwood Valley, CA.

Second row: Desert in Spring - Andrea Brokenshire, Round Rock, TX; The Memories That Remain - Lynn Czaban, Eugene, OR; Welcome Home - David Taylor, Fort Collins, CO.

Top Row: Memories of a Maiko - Melissa Sobotka, Richardson, TX; Chrysanthemum - Shelley Rothgeb, Phoenix, AZ; La Catrina - Cindy Stohn, Chandler, AZ; Passiflora - Find Joy, Live your Passion - Andrea Brokenshire, Round Rock, TX

Bottom row: Do You See What I See - Lise Belanger, Trois-Pistoles, QC Canada; Sassy Lady - Judy Crotts, Long Beach, CA; Red Bird - Karen Kay Buckley, Carlisle, PA with Judi Madsen; Hang in There, Sally Freeberg

Chrysanthemum caught my eye because of the irregular edge, the entire shape is finished! At first glance it may look like a flower on a black background, but the background you see in the photo is the convention center curtain. Do You See What I See appealed to me for its strong graphic style.

I am looking to up my game in terms of my quilting this year, so much of what I was drawn to was pictorial quilts that were well quilted. The 2 white/black quilts have lots of negative space making it easy to see the background quilting.

The selection above are quilts from the special exhibit of quilts by Linda Anderson, of La Mesa, CA. I am a longtime fan of Linda’s work, and it was really great to see so many of her pieces in one time and space. I’m afraid I did not make note of the titles of these pieces, for my own curiosity I would have liked to know which years they were made. I’m wondering if the style of quilting on the faces, for example, the toddler reading a book is done very differently than the one next to it of the little girl standing on the bench. Which came first?

And of course, what’s a quilt show without shopping? I was excited to see Janet Wicker-Frisch has brought back some of her She Who Sews fabric line, now with Riley Blake. I couldn’t resist this Asian theme panel from QT Fabrics, even though I pulled out my collection of un-quilted panels and this one brings the count to 17!! Despite my needing NOTHING a few more fabrics followed me home, a chunk of night sky, steam-punk spider fabric by Desire’s Designs (I used up all I bought last year), and some metallics that are companions to the panel.

The problem is, I have completely run out of fabric storage and am now creating towering piles on the floor - This year I aim to use more than I purchase, but I will never say I’m not buying fabric. I’m taking a cue from my friend Sam Hunter of Hunters Design Studio, she suggests we keep a tally of fabric in (purchased) and fabric out (used) and aim to use more than you purchase for the year, that way the stash reduces but we keep our quilt shops and vendors in business!

My friend, Jean Impey has been posting these portrait quilts, a collaborative project with Freddy Moran. Each portrait is accompanied by a fun characterization. What I didn’t realize was they would be on exhibit, displayed as a group. There must have been 50 of them altogether, I’m so sorry I didn’t get a shot of the row of them, each fun on its own, very impressive en masse

The costume designer in me was tickled by an exhibit of wearable art by Marty O, using repurposed vintage quilts

There was much more I didn’t include in this report, more products, more quilts, more garments, but I hope you enjoyed this taste of the Road to California Quilt show and I hope to see your there in 2023!

More Peace, Love & Joy for 2022

I’ve decided to take a page from Big Magic by writer Elizabeth Gilbert and start a love affair… with quilting. “Aren’t you already having a love affair with quilting?” you might ask, you’d think so, considering how much time we’ve spent together, but really, I’ve just been romancing quilt TOPS, that’s the part I find fun, exciting, and adventurous. The act of stitching through the 3 layers to turn the top into a quilt, has always felt more like a tired marriage, with the focus on how much work it all is, and tedious work at that! My quilting choices have mostly focused on not ruining my top and leaned toward lots of stitching around elements and trying to stitch the appliques and backgrounds as little as possible! But, if I want to be able to quilt at the level I want to quilt at, I’m going to have to fall in love with quilting.

I quilted 2 versions of the mini quilt tryptic (free this month with code PEACE ) a promising start to my love affair (I also love that the fabric of the quilt, matched my nail polish!!!)

Much of the time I don’t quilt the Mini Quilts until after they have been in the newsletter - working under deadline often means taking a few shortcuts. But this month I had a bit more time, and I really wanted the valentine’s edition for my own wall, (and not as unquilted “textile art”) so I decided to quilt it. I still was unsure how to quilt the negative space around the wreaths, but I stitched around the leaves and buds. (in my mind they are flower buds, not berries for this time of year) adding some curling vines coming out from the wreath into the center. I chose the feather border because I had a pounce-able template, making for fast marking, and chose the undulating version so I could add in some of the curling vines, tying the design back into the quilting in the blocks.

And do you know what? I enjoyed it! As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it so much I decided to quilt the vertical version from Christmas. Since I had already published it unquilted, I wasn’t concerned about publishing it again, so I felt a bit freer, (In other words, more willing to wreck it!) I wasn’t thrilled with the drag lines showing after blocking the horizontal version, due to a lack of quilting outside of the wreath. So, for the Christmas version, I used the same curling vines but added them outside of the wreath, not just inside. I was happy with how that helped fill the negative space around the wreath. The border on the vertical version were much narrower so I couldn’t use the same feather design. I first just quilted straight lines using the plaid border as my guide, I felt that was not quite enough quilting to give me an evenly quilted surface, so I filled in between the lines with teardrop shapes.

In case you would like to make your own, for the horizontal version I used Fabrico markers to color the leaves in the wreath, then trimmed the panels to 8 1/2” x 10 1/2” I used 2” sashing and 3 1/2” borders (cut size). For the vertical version I used colored pencils to shade the wreath and berries, then trimmed the colored panels to 8 1/2” x 10” I used 2” sashing and 2 1/2” borders (cut size)

The L❤️VE Pillow my Mini Quilt Conversion

Don’t think for a minute that this is a tutorial, if this were an actual tutorial with all the specifics and details involved, I wouldn’t get this written until Christmas… and its January now. I enjoyed making this pillow based on my mini quilt design and just thought I would share it with you. My original mini quilt was created by printing the image on fabric, and then coloring with Derwent’s inktense pencils. The color was sealed into the fabric using textile medium.

For the larger pillow I first decided what size pillow I wanted and worked backwards. In this case I wanted a finished pillow around 21” to fit a 22” pillow blank. I wanted to quilt it first to “shrink it” before cutting to 21”. I decided a center white square of 16” and borders at 4” would allow extra to square up after quilting.

I then had to decide how much I needed to enlarge the letters, I decided to enlarge the letters from the original 3 1/4” to 6 3/8” which according to my Quilters Assistant Proportional Scale, was 193%. Once I enlarged the letters and heart I traced them, in reverse, onto paper backed fusible web and pressed the fusible web to the back of my applique fabric. Once cut out and fused to the top, I stitched a small zig zag stitch all around each letter.

I layered the top with batting and backing, ditch stitched the applique and did a freemotion scattered heart fill in the background and simple straight stitch quilting in the border.

Once the quilting was complete, I trimmed the pillow top to 22” square. I’m both cheap and lazy, so rather than insert a zipper to allow my pillow sham to go on and off, I do a split back. I cut 2 pieces of fabric the height of my pillow, I determine the width as follows: 1/2 the width of the pillow, in this case 22” divided by 2 = 11 + 1” folded back two times on the edge= 2” + 3” overlap divided by 2= 1 1/2”. 11” + 2” + 1 1/2” = 14.5” add another 1” because I’m generally bad at math and so I cut each side of the back at 15 1/2”, on the center back edge of each side, I folded 1” back and pressed, folded again, pressed and stitched. I repeated on the other piece. Once the center overlaps were stitched, Place the folded stitched edges together in the center, overlapping the two sides until there is 3” covered overlap. (I only did a 2” overlap on this pillow but it was so plump, 3” overlap would have been better) I stitch the two halves of the overlap together at the top and bottom using a 5/8” seam allowance (I use a 1/2” seam allowance on pillows) so that the reinforcing stitches are just inside the pillow seam where it is sewn to the top. That way It pulls at the reinforcement stitches not at the seam when I pull the pillow blank in and out of the cover.

I then placed the pillow top on top of the stitched back and trimmed to match the size of the pillow top. with right sides together, I stitched a 1/2” seam allowance all around the edge. Then I finished the inside with a zig zag stitch and trimmed the corners to eliminate bulk.

Turn the pillow sham right side out and insert your pillow blank.

I hope you enjoyed this non-tutorial, tutorial and I wish you a very happy Valentine’s season.

My Favorite Audiobooks of 2021

I’ve always loved a good story and was a voracious reader from the time I could open a book. As a teenager I chose my purses based on how many paperbacks I could fit into them. As time went on however, I found it harder and harder to find time to read. The more time I spent quilting, the less time I had for reading. Audio books became my new BFF. I got hooked on them originally to make my daily snail crawl thru traffic on my commute into downtown Los Angeles while working for the Opera, endurable. Now they make any task not requiring huge concentration much more entertaining.

I have an Audible subscription with Amazon and I also check out audio books online through an app on my phone called Libby The Libby App by OverDrive: Free ebooks & audiobooks from the library I find it’s great to have both, Audible suggests books so I don’t have to search as much, and frequently I can find books recommended by Audible for free thru Libby.

The following are some of my favorite audio book listens from last year.

City of Girls - Elizabeth Gilbert

Midnight Sun - Stephanie Myer

Will - Will Smith, Mark Manson

Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter

Say No to the Duke - Eloisa James

New York - Edward Rutherfurd

Be Frank with Me - Julia Claiborne Johnson

Meet me at Emotional Baggage Claim & My Nest isn’t Empty, it Just has more Closet Space & Best Friends, Occasional Enemies- Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella

The Shoemaker’s Wife - Adriana Trigiani

Four Nights with the Duke - Eloisa James

Uprooted - Naomi Novik, Julia Emelin

Lost Roses - Martha Hall Kelly

The Diviners & Lair of Dreams & Before the Devil Breaks you & The King of Crows - Libba Bray

The Girls with No Names - Serena Burdick

The Highland Witch - Susan Fletcher

A Memory of Violets - Hazel Gaynor

A Stitch in Time - Kelley Armstrong

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek - Kim Michele Richardson

Crown of Feathers & Heart of Flames -Nicki Pau Preto

if you haven’t listened to The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, or the A Discovery of Witches series by Deborah Harkness, I highly recommend them. They were my very favorites from 2020.

I’m always hunting for new stories, and I’d love to know YOUR favorite audiobooks!

Quickie Mini Quilt Finish

Not every quilt needs a binding. Yes I said it.

For my art quilts I usually do a facing. I want my art to go edge to edge without the “frame” a binding can create. (Not to mention I get much sharper corners with a facing!) Sometimes a binding is a visual distraction, other times just a waste of effort. For this mini quilt I knew I wanted a solid black fabric border to create a bold “frame” but putting a black binding on top of the black border falls under the category of waste of effort. This is when I use my modified pillowcase finish. (Titles not showing under photos… just count along!)

Cut your backing and batting the same size as your quilt top.

Cut a 4” slit in the fabric upper left quadrant staying at least 1” away from edges. (Fig 1) opening will end up on lower left corner, shift to right or center according to your label placement preference.

Stack the 3 layers and pin: backing face up, top face down, batting on top. You will have the fabric right sides together with the batting on top. Stitch seam with 1/4” seam allowance all the way around the outer edge. (Fig 2) Trim batting away from the corners being careful not to cut the stitches.

Pull quilt top out through slit in fabric backing. (Fig 3) Flatten and smooth out use purple thang or cuticle stick to work corners out into shape.

With everything smooth and flat, cut a piece of fusible slightly larger than the slit you cut into the fabric (Fig 4), Slip fusible web into the quilt under the slit and fuse according to package directions. Stitch all around outside edge using 1/4” Seam allowance and do any other quilting you desire. You can see from the back I did minimal quilting on this mini. Fuse a label over the slit to finish. (Fig 5)

Finished mini quilt from the front (Fig 6)

Don’t forget to add some hanging loops.

Enjoy!

Rettabug's UFO Club - the first 4 months

Rettabug’s UFO Club kicked off in March and collectively we’ve tackled a variety of projects from completing bed and wall quilts that have been stalled (some over 10 years!) to finally replacing that old toilet and getting a big pile of pants hemmed!

Even though I can’t claim to have finished all my monthly UFO’s on time (I’m 3 for 4) I can say FOR SURE that all 4 projects are WAY farther along than they would be without UFO Club. So how about you? Now that summer is here do you have the time and interest in getting your personal UFO’s tackled? We are less than 1/2 way through, you still time to join in and complete 5 UFO’s and to make it easy I’ll take $5.00 off the price of membership thru August 5, 2021 with code: FIVE laurettacrites.com/ufo-club

It’s been a really lovely club, with about 20 or so members showing up regularly in our private Facebook group, making it easy to see what everyone is working on each month and to keep encouraging each other and not feel lost in a crowd.

Alicia Campbell “The Batty Lady” is providing an incredibly generous grand prize: An Edge to Edge longarm quilting package valued over $300.00!

Wonderful monthly prizes have included fabric and jewelry, and needless to say, your odds for winning are phenomenal!

The 1st number to come up was my belly dancer costumes quilt. This is the only one of my original art quilts on my UFO list. Although I put in a ton of hours of stitching, I wasn’t able to finish by the end of the 30 days so I swapped it for my Holiday Curtains (originally designated “Christmas curtains” I have them up now for 4th of July and I bet I’ll use them in February, too!)

The 2nd project to be completed was again my belly dancer costumes quilt (seriously?) which, despite my very best efforts, I still wasn’t able to get finished (and still isn’t finished now but I’m getting back to it)

3rd up was my Calendula Patterdrip’s Cottage which I was THRILLED to get finished. I really love the design by Crabapple Hill mine was done with colored pencils, and I take it with me for trunk shows and classes so I was super happy to get that one done.

Project 4 was the oldest on my UFO list. I made the top at a retreat with my quilt guild, the Nite Owl’s, back in 2009. I wasn’t sure I would even be able to find the directions or pieces/parts to finish it (I had been displaying it, even though it wasn’t finished, so it was separated from it’s “stuff”) Not that I followed the directions once I found them! I couldn’t resist adding a little shading to the pumpkins with tsukineko inks, something I probably wouldn’t have done in 2009! Luck was with me and I even managed to get that one done a few days early. For me it’s the deciding what to quilt, as in the design or motif, that can really hold up a project. Once I know how I want to quilt something then doing it isn’t such a problem, but that uncertainty is what lands things in the UFO pile to begin with. I’ve heard from other members that having that deadline helps move them past “analysis paralysis” and on to getting it done! I know I have had the same experience, with a deadline forcing me past the uncomfortable parts (read scary!!) and doing it anyway. We all need that boost from time to time.

I can also say that finishing up some of these old projects feels like I’m freeing up trapped energy, physically and even more so mentally. Physically, mentally and energetically creating space for fresh new projects on my horizon, and what can be better than that?

The Daily Weigh Quilt

I was first introduced to the idea of the “Temperature Quilt” by Vivika DeNegre editor of Quilting Arts Magazine, from her post on IG telling us that she was starting one. If you live under a rock like me, you may not have heard about this phenomenon sweeping the quilting world. The basic idea is that the quilt design is determined by the daily high and low temperatures of your local weather tracked for 1 year. Fabric colors are assigned to each temperature by the maker but the exact combination is determined by nature.

I was intrigued by the idea, but weather in Southern California?! we don’t have any, and it certainly is NOT something I track everyday. But something kept pokeing me and I started to think well, there IS something I DO track every.. single.. day. My weight. I weight myself every morning as soon as I get out of bed. OK, first I take my retainer out, brush my teeth, and relieve myself, then I weigh, but I thought that might be TMI. So I thought…. DAILY WEIGH QUILT !!!!

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The goal: Document my weight loss journey in a fun way, track my weight for a 1 year (OK, 330 days, better layout) and make a quilt based on the daily scale. I’ve selected a very simple triangle block. I like the idea that the block can point up, down or sideways to indicate a gain, loss or no change. Once I decided on a block, I had to determine the color palette. Choosing Feb 1, 2021 as my starting point, Feb 1 being the day I started a formal weight loss program after falling off weight watchers early in lockdown. On Feb 1, 2021 I weighed 190.6 lbs and my goal weight is 160. so that would require 30 shades, one to represent each pound. I want the color to move from dark to light in value and decided my best chance at finding 30 shades would be in blue, which is great, ‘cause I like blue, it’s a soothing happy color, so that was easy.

Next to determine the background color, I figured I would need 10 shades, 1 for each oz. My inspiration came by way of a scene from a Los Angeles opera production I worked on - a masquarade scene where everyone was wearing blues, greens, teals and aqua. I thought it was so beautiful, it has stuck with me for years ( but not the name of the opera, apparently) With teal and aqua falling into the blue category I decided on green for the background then came the fun of shopping! Fabric stores had just started opening again in California so I was very excited for my 1st chance to fabric fondle in-store in months! Roxane’s Wish and a Dream was on my way home, so I began my shopping there, this whole brainstorm having arrived while in Cayucos on a beach sewing retreat with my BFF.

It was surprisingly easy to collect the 40 fabrics I needed, but anticipating exactly how much I’ll need of each, not so easy…

When I sat down and charted the first 2 months of weight data I discovered something I had never realized after years of weighing myself, daily on a digital scale. It does not mark each ounce! My scale has 2 ounce increments - .0, .2, .4, .6, .8. HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT BEFORE? Now all the sudden I had 5 green fabrics too many! Still not knowing exactly how much fabric I would need, I decided to choose 5 fabrics and assign each a back-up from the leftovers, as a stand-in, in case the original ran out. I cut and pieced the 1st 2 rows of blocks and it looked pretty awful!! I really began to doubt my concept, but now that I have a few more rows up I’m a little more hopeful. Wish me luck reaching my goal, and I’ll keep you posted on the quilt!

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

In Honor of Nurses and Teachers

May will be with us soon and this month I have created 2 mini quilts in honor of National Teachers day May 4 and National Nurses Day May 6. My Mother and Grandmother were both nurses and I come from a long line of teachers and nurses, so much so, that in my teenage years it almost seemed like a curse, one I was determined to escape.

The closest I came to nursing in my 20’s was the year or so I spent working at Greater El Monte Community Hospital. I was that girl at the nurses station who answers the phone and hands the doctors and nurses the charts on TV, at least in shows where they still have charts. I had no medical training at all but it was my job to copy the doctors orders (by which I mean interpret their horrible handwriting into something that could be read by other humans) into the charts, medication dosages and frequency, tests to be performed, the works. I’m still amazed something so important wasn’t the job of a trained nurse, on the other hand, to this day I can still read just about any handwriting!

As I write this today I can’t help but think my ancestors are having a good laugh at my expense. I was so determined to chart my own path one entirely different from anyone else in my family, one that took me from Sales Rep to CalArts student to Theater Costume Designer, Massage Therapist to Quilt Artist to Quilt Show Vendor, Speaker to… so many exciting and seemingly unique career shifts. All that time I thought I was doing my own thing and blazing my own path - it has all led here - Where I find myself at last both as a teacher, sharing what I love in quilting and taking delight in the accomplishments of my students and no, not a nurse, but a healer just the same, with my massage therapy practice.

So, Mom, my first Teacher and life long Nurse, and all the other teachers and nurses that came before me on our family tree, these quilts are for you.

For a limited time get the FREE mini quilt image PDF by using the code NURSE or TEACH respectively at checkout. Limit 1 coupon code per order.

If you don't hear from me in a week, send a crew with shovels to dig me out...

As if we aren’t all feeling claustrophobic these days as is, we decided to replace the flooring in our family room. Here you can see just how congested things can really get…

I’m also working on getting all the details for Rettabug’s UFO club nailed down and ready for you all to sign up. If you want to be the 1st to get the deet’s you can sign up here and I’ll make sure you don’t miss out on the fun!