stories

introduction

Not always able to speak a common language, thread becomes our lingua franca.

Deborah Valoma
“Thread Memory,” 2026 [1]

Deborah Valoma and Elise Youssoufian have traveled individually and together to research Armenian needlelace in the Armenian population centers of Fresno, Los Angeles, Boston, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Istanbul, and Yerevan. Our conversations with practitioners have yielded boisterous moments of excitement and laughter, but also moments of sorrow. We locate ourselves by our home villages and share painful stories of our ancestors over Armenian coffee. Often tears flow as we look at each other with a quiet sense of recognition, in a wordless communication between knowing women. Inherently, there is both longing and relief in these encounters—longing for a sense of belonging and relief as we find solidarity in the needlelace threads that bind us together.

We have stood with heads nearly touching as we look together at needlelace artifacts—identifying designs and noting the skill of the stitchers. More often than not, makers’ names have been forgotten, but they nonetheless assert their authority. Thread becomes memory and doilies become what Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer call “testimonial objects.” [2] Poignant stories emerge; it is these moments where magic happens.

Part of our mission at the Armenian Needlelace Initiative is to collect and chronicle stories related to Armenian needlelace. From time to time we will put out a call for story submissions. Sign up for our mailing list to be notified when a call goes out.