Kilim (flat woven)

There are environmental, sociological, economic, and religious reasons for the widespread art of kilim weaving among the Turkish people from Central Asia to Turkey.The geographical regions whereTurks have lived throughout the centuries lie in the temperate zone.Temperature fluctuations between day and night, summer and winter may vary greatly. Turks-nomadic or pastoral, agrarian or town-dwellers, living in tents or in sumptuous houses in large cities-have protected themselves from the extremes of the cold weather by covering the floors, and sometimes walls and doorways, with carpets. The kilims are always hand made of wool or sometimes cotton, these kilims are natural barriers against the cold. The flat woven kilims which are frequently embroidered are used as blankets, curtains, and covers over sofas or as cushion covers.

Kilims known as the flat-woven carpets, play an important role in the lives of Anatolian people. They have been used as cradles for babies, as the most beautiful part of the trousseau of a young girl, as floor coverings, wall hangings and sometimes as a sack to store grain or clothes in. The roof and the walls of the home of a nomad are made of kilims. Hundreds of colours, dancing on a kilim, are the expression of nature, dream, hope and love. Once you learn the alphabet of a kilim you can read it as if it is an antology of folk tales. It is not necessary to talk about the designs of a kilim it is upto your understanding of beauty and art. You can say anything you like about the designs. Your own story will be the most original one. Here are the meanings of the most common designs seen on kilims.
The innumarable variety of kilim designs make it almost impossible to become aquainted with all the variations.

Kilim Weaving The word 'kilim' applies to carpets (rugs) which are not knotted but woven without pile.The threads in a kilim are woven across the warp, not from edge to edge, but only were pattern and colour make it necessary.The threads forming the pattern are beaten so close that the warp - threads are invisible.

 

There are four kinds of flatweaves in Turkey : kilims, cicims, sumaks, and zilis : among these, kilim is the most common one.

KILIM A kilim is always a weft-faced weave. Independent wefts are woven back and forth each in its own pettern area.

CICIM The cicim is woven on a balanced plain or weft-faced weave with an additional design thread used in a semi-wrapping sequence.

ZILI The zili is woven on a balanced plain or weft-faced weave in which two, three or rerely five warps are floated in horizontal sequences by an extra weft.

SUMAK The sumak weave results from a complete wrapping of the warps in each shed by de- sign threads.