Turkish Delight

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S!!! It is a little late, but oh well better said than forgotten. All I hope for is that 2009 is better than 2008. It has to be better, if it is any worse I will end up in the loony bin, I am sure of that. As the saying goes, 'What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.' I don't know about that. My spirit and passion were killed a few times last year and I am still trying to repair them and I don't know how much stronger it has made me. I am more determined this year though. I am needing to make some personal changes and professionally I want to blog more. I want to educate as many readers as possible about area rugs. So onto today's topic, Turkish area rugs.
In July 2008 a client brought us three very bright and unique area rugs that her husband bought overseas. Unfortunately, I only took a picture of the three of them together, but you can get the idea for how bright and unique they are. They almost look Moroccan especially the fringes and the big knots used in the weaving, but they are wool on wool. That is why I classified them as Turkish area rugs even though the colours are very bright for a typical Turkish area rug. I have found that most Turkish rugs are dark colours, such as navy and browns with bright highlights. I call them masculine because of that. If I am incorrect please let me know. It is getting harder and harder to classify certain area rugs lately.





















The client was very happy with the cleaning as the colours popped even more afterward. She brought us the other three area rugs in Dec. These ones I took more pictures of. These three have more uniqueness about them. Box F has a fringe that is connected at the bottom. There is only fringe at one end of this area rug.
Boxes B and E are of the same rug. The back of this Turkish area rug is very red and looks blurry whereas the front is a faded orange as shown in box E. I do think that this rug spent time grabbing some rays before it was brought to Canada.
Boxes A and H are the same rug. There is a lot of abrash (different dye lots used in the weaving of the area rug). I am curious if the area rug was once all the same colour of orange and it just faded into the abrash or if there was always a shade difference between the orange wool used? I don't know how abrash starts out I just know how to explain it and recognize it.
Box C is the back of one of the Turkish area rugs. The picture doesn't show the ruler I used to measure the knots, so the wide part of the orange border is about two inches wide. Hopefully that gives you some indication as to the size of knots used in the weaving process.
These Turkish area rugs hit the cool chord with me. I love them because they are not your typical area rug and they add a lot of brightness to any room. I wish I knew more about the origins of area rugs. I would love to be able to tell you if these were woven in a village or a city. If they were made for selling or if they just ended up being sold at a market. Someday I will know and we can all learn it together.
Thanks for reading, RugloverMary