When a Turkish woman gets married, she normally has a collection of towels, head scarves, bed linnen, kitchenware, pyjamas and the like all prepared to take to her home that she will share with her husband. In Turkish we call this collection of items ‘çeyiz’ and in Dutch ‘uitzet’. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if there is a translation for this into English. This collection of items mainly consist of hand-made items. The mother of the bride normally plays a big role in this.
A Kanavice Sisters wedding
As Sermin was preparing for her wedding, our mother grabbed this opportunity to prepare some beautiful items for her. She chose to make a duvet cover and pillow covers which she decorated by cross stitching some typical Turkish motives on them. My mother then selected the fabrics for the covers in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.
The patterns
Filiz Türkocağı designs beautiful cross stitch patterns in Turkish motives. She also incorporates the well-known ‘evil eye’ in her patterns, which is a great detail for newlyweds. In her patterns, the main colors typically are blue, red and green. It also normally includes a tulip, which is Turkey’s national flower. Our mom really likes this type of traditional cross stitch pattern, which is why she used it for the pillow cases shown.
As you may be able to guess, these are the sort of projects that take up more time. Not just the cross stitching, but to then do the sewing part requires time and patience.
