One topic, one page
All about blankets
Names stitched onto blankets, sewing a first-winter cover, and the blanket label.
- StoryA first-winter baby blanket: flannel and cotton, sewn in one eveningThe blanket I sewed for Mehmet Emde’s first winter was two layers of fabric, four corners and one evening. Measurements, seam allowance, hand-finishing — and, first of all, where a blanket belongs and where it never does.
- StoryThe first letter on the blanket: where a baby’s name gets written firstAfter the hospital wristband, most Turkish homes write a baby’s name in one place first: the corner of the blanket. Why there? My mother with an embroidery hoop, a needle that refuses to hurry, and a single lopsided letter found in a cupboard years later.
- StoryChoosing a name four times: how we learnt to love a nameSüleyman Taha, Muammer Esat, Hamza Bera, Mehmet Emde. We chose a name for four boys and learnt the same lesson each time: a name isn’t found on a list, it’s found by calling it out loud. On the quiet side of naming a baby — with a note on why Turkish children so often carry two names.
- StoryEmbroidery and remembering: what happens when a name is written in threadEvery cloth in my grandmother’s dowry chest had two letters stitched into the corner, and they can still be read today. Why embroidery is back in twenty-somethings’ handbags, and why a baby’s name written with a needle lands so differently from one typed on a screen.
- StoryMoving to Türkiye, motherhood and… my new secret ritualBetween a new country and a baby to look after, Kristina Çelik refused to leave herself for “later” — and fell under the spell of perfume. She shares the warm notes she loves for autumn: spiced vanilla and amber, sandalwood and cardamom, coffee and chocolate.
- StoryOne stitch, one breath: why knitting is the calmest thing we doIn hospital waiting rooms, on bus seats, in front of the evening news — women in Türkiye were always knitting something. Now the needles are back in young hands, and doctors are saying what grandmothers already knew: knitting calms you down.
- StoryThe name on the door: the warmth of wood, and whose room it isHanging a baby’s name on their bedroom door is a small thing; but for everyone who opens that door, the room becomes someone’s in that instant. From the scrap of wood my father nailed above our door in Zonguldak to four boys and four doors: why wood is still the material that belongs on a door.
- StoryThe sewing machine is back — and it was never just a hobbySewing classes in Dublin sell out months ahead, New York declares sewing “cool again”, and across Türkiye the old Singers are coming down from the attic. What’s behind the quiet comeback — and where does a new mother find room for it?