I guess that should really be "Bibilla eureka" to be consistent, since both words are Greek, but "Oya eureka" sounded better. <g> I wish I could think of something clever to say in Turkish, but my knowledge of Turkish begins with Ataturk and ends with 'teshekerederem."
I finally managed to make some respectable diamonds and pyramids. Oya are something I try to do every few years, when the mood strikes. I can't say I'm a beginner, exactly, because I've made a couple Armenian needlelace doilies and can do the knot stitch in my sleep, but it does take more patience to do those itty bitty flowers. I wanted to make a somewhat radical suggestion: don't try using 80 tatting thread (pace Gretchen). I tried several different threads and the DMC size 80 tatting cotton was by far the most difficult to use. It tangled abominably. The thread 'remembers' the tangles and develops kinks in the same places. It's about the right thickness, but that's all. I tried a couple balls of 80 cotton in case one of those balls was unusually twisted. They both tangled a great deal, even with short lengths of thread. They just would not 'lie' properly in the knot. Now that I've been looking at more magazine articles on oya, I'm guessing that they're not using DMC 80 in Turkey. First, DMC products are very expensive in this part of the world. I live in a major city and can find DMC 8 perle cotton and 6-strand embroidery floss fairly easily, but I would really have to hunt for, say, DMC 12 perle cotton. I've seen DMC 80 in only one shop and only for brief periods when someone was giving a hardanger course. It's not at all easy to find (and forget about other thread sizes like 30, 50, 100, etc.!) So I would guess that it's probably not a common item in small Turkish villages. Second, I have a Turkish scarf with oya made of a fairly coarse nylon thread. When I bought it, the store owner claimed that the oya were made of silk. I raised one eyebrow and said, somewhat sarcastically, "Oh really? Would you let me do a burn test?" She was amenable because she had a spool of the thread in her desk. She lit a match, we watched the thread melt into a little plastic bead, and she agreed that it wasn't silk. As if the 'stiff as a board' feel wasn't a clue.... Third, I saw some Turkish threads in one of our larger craft shops. I wasn't too interested in them at the time because they were clearly nylon (not even polyester), but I recall that the only word I recognized on the label was 'oya.' Hmmmmm. I'll have to pick up a couple spools next time I'm there. Finally, I reread the recent PieceWork article on oya and noticed that the oya in the last picture (the headscarf belonging to Linda Ligon) had a very 'plastic' look. So that's why I think that these coarse nylon threads are being used for oya in Turkey. Maybe someone has a few oya at home and can confirm or deny my guess? So I'm not going to use 80 cotton any more for oya. I actually managed to get better results with cheap polyester sewing thread! I think I may use perle 8, even though it's quite coarse, because it comes in so many colours. Or I may unply some embroidery floss and try making oya with single strands. Best wishes, Avital - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
