About Turkish Hand Made Carpets
Main Knotting Regions in Turkey
Classification of carpets and kilims with respect to age:
- New: Woven within the last 15 years.
- Semi-antique: From 50 to 75 years old.
- Antique: Over 100 years old.
White and brown are natural colors of sheep wool. Natural dyes are used for other colors using the plants listed below.
- Different shades of brown: Walnut bark, shells of root seeds and beetroot.
- Shades of red: Wild cherry tree and beetroot.
- Shades of green: Walnut bark, root dye, and leaves of olive trees.
- Dark blue: Saffron root.
- Yellow: Mix of walnut and grape leaves.
- Camel: Camel wool.
In general color is obtained from a mix of walnut bark and earth. Before the dyeing process, the wool thread is boiled together with olive leaves to clean it. Black and gray colors are obtained using earth.
Spinning of Thread and Weaving
In weaving, two types of knots are used.
- Turkish of Gördes knot (double knot)
- Persian knot (single knot)
Turkish Knot
Persian Knot
Carpet Weaving Girls
Wool from the high plateaus
Hand-woven Turkish carpets from Hereke, Semerke, and Kars-Kazak are made using top-quality wool from sheep maintained at elevations of 1500 m or more (approx. 5000 ft). Sheep grazing on the high plateaus produce longer hair and softer wool with because of the quality of the grass and the demands of the weather.
Spinning
Wool used in hand-woven Turkish carpets and kilims are made finer by hand or machine tools. Those that are made finer by hand have a brighter appearance after washing and are more valuable.
Washing
Three processes are used for washing:
- Weathering : colors are faded using chemicals to make them look antique.
- Yellow was (gold color): In this process, the carpets are given a brighter yellowish appearance.
- Ordinary wash: Carpets and kilims are cleaned by washing in a hot water pool. In this process, colors are preserved.
Synthetic Silk
Syntetic silk (called floș) is used in imported carpets. The framework for these carpets is made from mercerized material. The knots are made from untwisted synthetic silk. Even though they may look like silk carpets these carpets have little value. They are cheaper because they have neither the longevity nor the quality of genuine silk carpets.
Steps of Carpet Weaving
The art of carpet making starts with a design.
In the Turkish system, Hereke carpets made from high-quality wool have 360,000 double knots per sq. m (approx. 33,000 double knots per sq. ft). In silk carpets made in Turkey, there are one million knots per sq. m (approx. 92,000 knots per sq. ft). To weave a Turkish silk carpet of one sq. m (approx. 11 sq ft) having 10x10 knots per sq cm, two young women need to toil for a year. For a silk rug of the same size with 24x24 knots per sq. cm, the two women need to work for five years.
