The Tale of Oya

A year or more ago, I saw an article in a travel magazine about shopping in Istanbul and it included wonderful photos of what I thought were crocheted trims. My sister traveled to Turkey last year and I gave her some money to find whatever beautiful, crocheted flower trims she could find. Here's what she came up with...

Then, a few months ago I was delighted when the topic of turkish needlelace appeared in the discussion of the CQ Embellishers Yahoo group. The following week, Sharon Boggon posted some additional information about turkish needlelace on her blog. Needless to say, I had turkish needlelace and oya on my mind the day I left my house to go shopping for a birthday gift. I stopped to eat lunch at the department store cafe and was seated next to another woman who was eating by herself. I had a copy of a crazy quilt block that I was working on at the time from Sharon Boggon's class at Joggles. The woman seated next to me asked me what I was working on so I told her and we struck up a conversation. She mentioned that she was going back to Turkey next week with a group of 6 other women to tour after having lived there for 15 years when her husband worked for the State Department. I told her about the recent discussions I'd read on-line about turkish needlelace and oya. She said she had a personal collection herself and gave me the name of a shop I could contact in the Istanbul bazaar, Deli Kiz. I came home and googled the shop name and was delighted that they had a web site. I contacted the owner, Linda Caldwell, and told her of my interest in oya, she sent me pictures in an email, and I made my selections. She doesn't normally ship from Turkey, but she was coming to the States for a holiday and dropped them into the mail once she arrived here a few weeks ago. Aren't they wonderful?


I am just amazed that I was able to find her, contact her and make a transaction. It never hurts to share your interests with people. You just never know what will happen...and, after all these years of being online, it still is absolutely amazing to me that Istanbul and Ellicott City, Maryland were so easily connected.