"Vila Flor", by Carlyn Clark of "The 1 Motif 100 Ways" series for day 42 of "The 100 Day Project"

And I'm back to the starry nights in blues theme. Funny, I don't intend for it to look like this, and yet it keeps popping up. At some point I'm going to print all the patterns and then lay them out and see what they look like. Someone also suggested that I do a book, which I think would be a fun culminating project. I think I'll use that as a reward to inspire me to actually complete all 100 days. It gets a bit tough sometimes. It feels like all the patterns are beginning to look alike. When that pops up I remind myself that this project is about the process, not the product. I've already gone back to some of the patterns and altered them for print on fabric. And I've got some in work translating them to designs for plates, cups and vases.

I wondered how a town would have gotten such a lovely name. Wikipedia has some interesting, and for a change quotable, text on Vila Flor: "It was King Denis who, while travelling (sic) through the burg (then known as Póvoa d´Álem Sabor, became enchanted by the local landscape and, in 1286, renamed the district Vila Flor.Around 1295, the King ordered the construction of a walled city, consisting of five gates, to protect the fledgling settlement and guard Portuguese interests in the territory.

During the Middle Ages, this bouquet of flowers, as Cabral Adão once called it, became the home to many fleeing Jewish families, who settled in the territory to start farms, businesses of small industry (such as tanneries and jewelers).King Manuel eventually conferred on the settlement an official charter, later to be reformulated in May 1512. An anti-Jewish, Manuel expelled the Jews from the municipality, whose remaining populous or army were then responsible for destroying the remaining homes."