Elder's hands holding Armenian needlace doily in progress with another doily in background

Mari Silahli holding Elise Youssoufian’s needlelace doily-in-progress, Istanbul, Turkey, 2024. Photo credit: © Deborah Valoma 2024.

support our mission

This website is a labor of love. In addition to covering online platform and hosting fees, Deborah and Elise have volunteered many hours to compile content, write text, and design this site. If you wish to support our mission and help us continue our research and further develop this site, we gratefully accept your donations of any size.

Thank you for your generosity!

Deborah Valoma & Elise Youssoufian
Co-founders, Armenian Needlelace Initiative


If you wish to donate and the method at the link above is not at your disposal, please contact us and we can arrange an alternative.

“Through the Armenian Needlelace Initiative, Deborah Valoma and Elise Youssoufian do more than preserve—they continue the unbroken thread.”

Gassia Armenian, Research Curator
Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles