Threads & Tiles and Everything In Between - Crochet Retreat in Ericeira, Portugal

I have been dreaming about hosting a crochet retreat for a long time. Not just a workshop - a real retreat, with a beautiful place, the right people, and enough time to actually slow down and make something. This March, it finally happened.

Six women flew in from across the US to join me in Ericeira, a small surf town on the Portuguese coast, for five days of crocheting, exploring, and - as it turned out - forming one of the warmest little communities I have ever been a part of.

Why Ericeira

If you have never been to Portugal in March, I want to let you in on something: it is the best-kept secret on the Atlantic coast. Not too hot, not too cold, no summer crowds. The light is golden and soft, the cafes are quiet, and you can walk along the cliffs without anyone bumping into you.

O House, where we stayed, is a beautifully designed guesthouse up in the hills above town. The team there made everything feel effortless - from the first email to the last morning coffee. Having the right venue and the right people behind it made all the difference, especially for a first retreat.

The project: an azulejo bag

When I started thinking about what we would make, the answer came quickly. We were going to Portugal - of course it had to be azulejos, those iconic blue-and-white decorative tiles that are everywhere in the country, on church facades, railway stations, old townhouses.

I designed three versions of an azulejo-inspired bags, one for each skill level (and now it's available for everyone - check 3-in-1 Azulejo Bag), using traditional Portuguese colors: deep cobalt blue, clean white, and a warm dark ochre. The goal was simple - everyone should leave with a finished object in their hands, regardless of where they were in their crochet journey. For many participants, it was their first time crocheting a granny square. By the end of the week, every single one of them had made a perfect one.

The stitch markers that started a whole new line

Here is something I did not plan on: I spent weeks before the retreat looking for stitch markers that felt right for the theme. Something that captured Ericeira, Portugal, the ocean, the whole mood of the trip. I could not find what I was looking for, so I made them myself.

Those handmade stitch markers ended up in every swag bag alongside yarn, materials for the project, and tea from my home country of Slovenia. And the response was so warm that I realized there was something here worth continuing. That retreat became the starting point for my stitch marker line, which is now available in my shop.

The moment I did not expect

I have organized a lot of things over the years, but I was not prepared for how quickly this group came together. On the very first evening, it felt like these women had known each other for years. There was laughter at the dinner table, card games that went late into the night, Portuguese wine, and the kind of easy conversation that usually takes days to arrive at.

We went to Sintra, explored Pena Palace, ate our way through every pastry we could find. We hiked along the coast and watched surfers tackle the waves at Coxos. We had movie nights with a projector, and one night we moved it outside and watched under the stars with a campfire going.

But the crochet sessions - those quiet hours in the courtyard or by the pool, hooks moving, everyone in their own rhythm and yet completely together - those are what I keep coming back to in my memory.

What I was hoping for, and what I got

My goal going into this retreat was straightforward: I wanted everyone to learn something new, to rest, and to leave with genuinely good memories. I thought about the atmosphere constantly in the planning stages - whether the pacing felt right, whether there was enough structure and enough freedom, whether people would feel comfortable.

One participant told me afterward that she felt she had gotten more than she had paid for. Another said goodbye with I love you! See you next year!

You cannot plan for moments like that. You can only build the conditions for them to happen.

What comes next

This was my first retreat. It will not be my last.

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I cannot wait to do this again.