Newbies!

Chilli Oya, Nallihan

Carnation Oya, Possibly from Kastamonu

Ivy Oya, Nallihan

Hello new comers to my oya collection.  Each of these types of oyas have a story behind them, and for that you should like my page on Facebook to learn more about OYA!

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Collection!

So these are some of the things I was given by my M.I.L while I was in Turkey, So within 4 days of us arriving I'd probably already had half of my baggage limit.  Some of these things were given to her, and some made by her, but the ones I've chosen to start a collection with were the ones that she didnt really want to sell but didnt want to keep them either.  So I got them as presents :)

This is part one of the things that she gave me.  There will be more to come of course!

These 3 pictures are of scarves that were made by my M.I.L's neighbour
who moved to Konya from Izmir.  Only 2 of the sides are done with Igne Oyasi, which means
that some rural parts of izmir dont fold their scarves in half, they put one side of the oya to the front and the other
goes around their neck.  One possibility also as to why they do this is because of a saying in Turkish "dort dortluk" which is like saying "nothing is perfect (but God)"

This scarf was given to my M.I.L by a woman from Kutahya, she says she cant remember what flower
its supposed to be, but I think its Costuran, one of the oyas given to the sister in law.  You can tell that this is from Kutahya or around Kutahya because Kutahya oya always has intermittent motifs (cit)

This scarf is made with a mekik or a shuttle.  This one my M.I.L made.  This oya is called "Karpuz cekirdegi"
or "watermelon seed" in Konya

This scarf was also made by my M.I.L's neighbour from Izmir.  Its crocheted with beads and it is "orange flowers"

This scarf makes me laugh.  My M.I.L says that women back in the olden days didnt have
perfume so when men would come to the house to ask for their hand in marriage she would wear this sort of
scarf so she'd smell nice.  As you can see this scarf has cloves on it.

This oya was made by my M.I.L and is a pomegranate flower.  Its made by  bead weaving on a crochet chain.

This oya was made by my M.I.L, its a version of Kasla Goz (eye lashes) most old style scarves with bead oyas on them
were normally made for plain white scarves.

This is a prayer scarf or namaz ortusu.  My M.I.L made this one with beads.  She put this in my bohca (trousseau/sack thing pictured below)  This isnt like a normal white scarf its quite long in the shape of a rectangle.

This is my bohca!  Although the picture isnt the right way haha.  These are the sorts of things that M.I.L's put their daughter in laws, son in laws, in laws etc things that she makes for the wedding day.  Sometimes they are decorated with cross stitch flowers instead of igne oyasi like this one is.

Roses are red...Well not in this case!

Hi guys, just a quick update on what I'm doing,  I've been busy at work so thats why I havent blogged but I just thought Id show you the roses Ive been making.  Theyre extremely difficult as they are 4 layers,  I started one today at 12pm and its now 10pm and I just finished.  My elbows are killing me aswel as my shoulders but I'm happy with the way they look.  Anyway its off to bed for me, I definitely need it!

Oya flowers for an order

So I have an order from a friend which I'm definitely overdue on, but theres no rush (thank god) on it but I'm working away as fast as I can on it and only took time out to write this post.  I just finished the red and white flower to which I'll add to the others.  It was very time consuming to make but I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.  I made a few flowers for this order before but decided not to use them because the stitches weren't small.  Usually when I make oya flowers I use a double wrap around the needle which creates a more sturdy knot, but you cant make the stitches small because of the height of the knot, and the knots become visible and really I'd only use that type of flower for something like a scarf where its going to be washed and needs to keep its shape.  Also it takes less time because the loops are bigger meaning that you can create a flower faster.  I decided to use the one wrap with these flowers which keep the loops closer together and smaller which makes the flower look more delicate.  Because these flowers will be used for a crown I have inserted fishing line around the edges and made oya over them so they will be more durable and keep their shape.  I haven't starched them because perhaps she would like the flowers to sit a certain way so I'll leave that up to her.  Anyway back to work I go!

Oya Doily- Finished!

So a while back in a previous post about knitted lace doilies and the tablecloth I made thats on etsy, I also stated that I was in the middle of making a mixed crochet and Oya doily.  Well, Its done!  And doesn't it look mighty fine?  Each has 5 rows of crochet and then 6 oya petals which are all joined to each other.  I much prefer mixing crochet with oya to make doilies than starting off in the traditional way, as this takes forever and I get bored.  I'll make one one day though, I always like to try things atleast once.  This took me a while to complete, by the 5th motif I was getting drained, because as I said previously each petal has to be worked up individually.  I'm going to put this one up on etsy sometime and see how it goes, although I should make some more in different styles for the market stall that I hope to have sometime this year!

Enjoy your day! Thanks for reading!

Bits and pieces for the new year!

 I hope everyone had a safe holiday season with lots of good memories!  So heres a few things Ive been working on or doing,  1st we have an oya flower that I made in my spare time out of pure boredom, 2nd we have a new pair of earrings soon to be up on etsy, 3rd we have a scarf I'm in the middle of making, and 4 was just a trial of the cinar yapragi bead oya, which I might add a tutorial for :)

Peace x.

I had some spare time so I made this.

Earrings soon to be up on etsy

Bahce (Garden) Oya

Bead version of Cinar Yapragi (sycamore leaves)

New OYA earrings on ETSY

So I got all creative today, and why not right? I mean this week the only day I have off from placement is Wednesday, and I dont think I'll be coming home to do my hand craft, I think I'll be coming home and sleeping lol.  So here they are, I whipped them up and now theyre on my etsy shop (which you can find here)  The last ones are tatted.  I have heaps more tatted earrings but theyre with my friends niece (remember I told you I gave some things to her to see if she could sell them at the stalls? yeah well I'm still waiting for them back lol)

So yeah, check out my store, tell your friends!  Thanks alot for reading my blog as always, and I'll blog ya soon!

The first side of the new OYA scarf

So I quickly finished the 1st side, starched it, and then took photos to put up for my lovely fellow readers to see. You can see what I meant before about the scarf being lovely, and for some reason I don't think a flat 2d type oya would have gone as well as a 3d oya would with this one.  I didn't use Altin Basak for this one as my new nylon threads came a couple of days ago they're called "Ozen is" -said 'ozen ish' and its great, really like it, excellent pull and doesn't twirl.  This oya is called hanimeli, however there are 2 versions of this oya.  One does actually look like a ladies hand (hanim= woman, eli= hand) however this one is the actual flower version which I believe is called a honey suckle.  The intermitant motif is often called maydonoz or cimen, which is parsley or grass, so I'm gathering in this instance its grass lol. 

It's really time consuming and I guess I'm going to price this one between 50 and 60 AUD, which I think is fair.  The most time consuming thing is having to make 4 petals and then making the stamens aswel, I hate stamens lol.  Usually I'll finish one side with the 1st row and then complete the flowers on it,  that way I don't get bored doing the same thing over and over again.  Anyway 3 sides to go!  Wish me luck!!

Oya Flowers...

So last night I decided to make an oya flower since I hadn't made one for so long.  The only bad thing is that because I only have a smaller size nylon thread, it took a long time to work up the outer pink tube.  But anyway I dont think I'll have a use for it, I might embroider stem stitches and then lead them to the flower?  I dont know.  I dont even know if theres even a flower that looks like this i kind of just made it up lol.

These are some flat oyas I made last night aswel just out of boredom.  I'll probably add to it and make an example of flowers I know how to make, maybe I can use it as an example for people to pick to put on scarves they want done, or something else, I dont know..what would you use them for??

Hope all that read this are doing well, I'm having neighbour problems at the moment so this is the only thing calming me down!!

I figured it out!!

I'm  actually really really REALLY proud of myself.  I've been trying to figure out how to do this motif for about a year and a half after I found that my partners mother had left a half done one here when she went back to Turkey (which you can see in one of my earlier posts.)  Its the "fan" motif, done with 2 colours a hair pin that I made myself and a size .7mm crochet hook.  If you're wondering how I made a hair pin myself, I just used a metal coat hanger.  I eventually realised why my previous attempts had failed and thats because I was doing it upside down *smacks forehead*

I was sort of mucking around this week with some tatting and bead crochet, but I'll probably continue with the bead crochet as its already nearly a metre long, and I have a yellow black white and green scarf that I can attach it to.  The motif is called "ojeli parmak" and "parmak" means "finger" and the motif does kind of look like fingers with nail polish on them!  Very easy to whip up, its a variation of the "goose eye" which is even simpler!  The tatted edging is called "pirpirim" which is one of my favourite greens- pursulane, very easy to whip up aswel as theres no chains, making this edging simple and suited for a beginner.

Thanks for taking a look!  Have a great day!

Apologies...

Loyal followers and lurkers of my blog I wish to apologize for not blogging for a while, I've been extremely busy and grandmas been sick so I've been there and by the time I get home I'm too busy to do anything...Luckily for me I take my work with me!

So I've been lacing it up for the past couple of weeks, even though I was supposed to be making an oya scarf for my partners mother on the 22nd of this month (I still have time) but I'm waiting for my shipment of threads to come as I've picked the scarf but dont have the thread colours for it.

About my laceworks:  I made the tablecloth and runner while I was at my grandmothers.  I used Oren bayan thread.  The 3 doilies are knitted and made by my grandmother from around 30 years ago (I found them while I was cleaning out all of her old clothes shoved at the back of a cupboard) and she gladly gave them to me.  Theres 2 oya lace pieces down the bottom left hand corner, one is a motif doily that still needs 3 more motifs to be completed- its a mixture of crochet and Igne oyasi which is totally beautiful, and the other one is a WIP (work in progress) where I'm just playing around with some stitch ideas.  Both are made with Nylon thread.

Its been really weird weather here in Melbourne the past week- I think thats why my neighbours have both gone mental..  That story is for another blog post lol.

I promise not to neglect any of you reading this blog again, but sometimes life throws things your way and you dont have time to take photos, sit down and write. 

Cheers xx

I love a good towel..And a good edging!

I think theres nothing better than going into somebodys house and finding a beautiful towel edging attatched to a soft cotton towel.  I definately think that you can enhance the look of ANY bathroom by adding a nice colourful edging to a towel thats well displayed.  Usually if an Igne Oyasi towel edging is made, they have a crochet part to it aswel, this part is sewn onto the towel to allow the owner to change the edging to a different towel if they wanted to.  Although some people prefer to do Igne Oyasi on the actual edge of the towel, I think either way is fine! Enjoy!