So, about midway through our trip around the coast of Turkey, my students realized that if we saw hand-woven things, I would be the last one on the bus. They have pictures of me in the middle of a Turkish Carpet store–sitting in piles of short pile rugs, flat weave kilim, silks, wools, natural and hand-dyed carpets of every size, color and tribal pattern imaginable. I have a tactile thing with textiles. Its the same when I return to my mother’s store after a year away–I have to touch the yarns, feel all the scarves, felted socks, baby blankets, shaws, and I usually–although its hard to imagine in this 100 degree weather–wrap myself in something: a head-hugging hat, a fluffy dark green sweater, earth-tone cabled mittens. (I think I inherited this tactile textile gene from her, truth be told!) The colors and tones are as touchable as the yarns– but I digress.

In Izmir (the New Testament’s Smyrna) we drove up to the very top of the city, to an old fort.
Not much was left, the walls, stairs up to what was a turret. But the view is spectacular. You see all the way to the sea, out over the entire city.

Of course, what did I take photos of? Yep. The weavers.
The “romer” people are often called gypsies in many parts of Europe. For example, Brad Pitt’s character in “Snatch.” In Spain they are often seeling things on the sidewalk. In Turkey, the Romer people trade in handicrafts and here, in Izmir, many had settled now for a generation of two. So in this ancient fortress, at the top of the city, I met and “talked” with this woman at her loom. She is about 25 or 27 years I think. Tosun and Sayeste translated for us. The young woman knows more English than I do Turkish–but we made do.

Here, you see the length of her simple loom. These yarns are not good quality–very rough sytnthetics in chemical dyes. But what she had hanging around her open air-work space on clotheslines were very simply sewn bags of beautiful wools with random buttons and “evil-eye” beads for protection and luck.

Like most peasant women (in hand trades or farmers), she wears a traditional scarf. This is not an Islamic headcover–notice her hair line is showing–but rather just to keep her hair clean and out of the way as she works. Cultural tradition rather than Islamic tradition.
In this photo, you can see how she has the loom set up. Looks like two “tredles” on the left, a beat stick on the right, and a heavy (it does the work by its weight–saves your wrists from stress) metal beater (see the opening photo for a close up). the loom stands in teepee style.

She sits at the loom, stradling the edges of the warp. Here she is beating the yarn down. Her edges are perfect! I tried to tell her about Mom’s looms and weaving–she jumped up and promptly directed me to sit at the loom and weave.

She was quite amused that I grabbed the beater the wrong way (its got a severe angle). And my edges weren’t at all careful–loopy actually. But she was amused and had a good time showing me how to change the tredles.

By this time, all of my students have gathered around–notice the tevas. Dr. J is weaving!!!

PS:
Some of these bags will soon be found in Mom’s shop ; )
The goat–now thats another story!