Stephen and I made our spring trip to Turkey to check on our production and to put in our new orders. We had a truly memorable trip. We began in Istanbul meeting with our dear longtime rug friends. We then traveled to Southwestern Turkey to visit with our weavers and then on to the fishing village of Foca on the Aegean for some much needed r&r.

The goal of this trip was to go into the mountains to several villages where our weavers make our custom kilims and pile rugs and to see Catal Huyuk the Neolithic site (more about this in a later blog). We needed to place new orders and check on our completed pre-sun pieces. It was the beginning of May which means the weavers were basically finishing the production and starting to head into the fields to farm their land. They work on the farm cycle, planting in the spring, harvesting all summer and then putting their produce and animal products by for the winter. They primarily weave for us in the fall, winter and early spring when they can't be in the fields.

They dress in colorful village clothes that are attractive and utilitarian at the same time as you can see in our pictures. The older village women wear a more elaborate traditional headdress than the younger villagers do these days.

Climbing by car, we took hairpin turns into the mountain villages. We passed many of the plants growing in the nearby fields, plants that the weavers use to make the natural dyes for our rugs and kilims. In our pictures you see the madder plant whose roots have been used for centuries to produce various shades of red. The weavers gather at least two year old roots in the fall and dry them, using a mordant to set the dye. It is speculated that Anatolia was most likely where madder root originated but of course its use radiated to Europe, the central Asian countries and North Africa. The Romans, Greeks and Egyptians used madder as the primary dye for various hues from red to violet. The use of madder was very widespread and popular in the Middle Ages. Madder fell into disuse in the 19th century with the rise of synthetic dyes but has seen a resurgence in the last twenty five years as the world returns to more natural products.

Our pictures also show a field of  yellow woad or dyer's woad as it is called. Thirty subspecies of woad grow in Turkey and the arrow shaped leaves which are bluish green, not the pretty flowers,  produce the indigo that is so treasured around the world and had been historically used to produce gradations of blue color. You will also see a picture we took of the wild chamomile. Fifty species of the largest genus of this plant are known in Turkey and produce various hues of yellow color. One of the weavers gave me a bag of walnuts from her trees. They were delicious. The outer husks of the nuts and the leaves have been used since ancient times to produce brown dyes.  Many other natural plants are used of which I will write more about in subsequent blog entries.

We watched the weavers in one village hand spin the wool and store the skeins by color so that when our customers work with us to choose a color from our “color blanket” for their custom rug or kilim we can pretty accurately match to the skeins the weavers produce. We also watched the weavers string the warp threads on vertical looms to create the base structure for the kilims they will weave. From there,  some of the weavers use a template to create the rug or kilim design, while others are so skilled at weaving they simply create. When the piece is complete, the rug or kilim is then cut down from the vertical loom and if it is a pile rug, it is shorn to the thickness that best reveals the design. Oftentimes, the pieces are then put out in the sun for about six weeks to achieve the depth of color in striation, or abrash, that we are looking for and that gives the pieces their jaw dropping beauty.

We hated to leave the villages which are teeming with life and very self sufficient. The villager’s homes are built into the sides of the mountains and the animals are housed on their first floors to efficiently heat the homes above. They live a truly green existence with inexpensive solar panels and rain barrels on their roofs. The weaver’s looms are on their porches in the warmer weather and in their homes in the winter time.

We were in one of the villages when some of the farmers were returning from the fields. The picture of the women on her donkey with the hay under her for her animals at home is particularly representative of the happy village life we encounter each time we go.

After spending many days with the weavers, Stephen and I headed through the ancient city of Pergamon, now Bergama, famous through the Renaissance/Ottoman era for carpets back to the 11th century (Yoruk clans) and on to Foca a little fishing village on the Aegean to relax, eat fish and gather our thoughts.  

We asked ourselves the question “Will Turkey remain as bucolic and rural and full of the old traditions long into this century now that the Arab world has had this huge push towards modernization? We think probably not. Just as the Yoruk tradition of the migration is dying out in western Turkey so maybe will the mountain villages as young people are drawn down to the cities. We feel fortunate over the last thirty years to have seen the old traditional life in all its unhurried  close to the earth ways. Being in the villages always reminds us how rich, full, connected and beautiful family and tribal life can be.
Clare Mahfouz-Moss