Carpets in Cappadocia

For my final post about our adventure last spring in Cappadocia I would like to tell you about a marvelous place.  It is a place where they make, display and sell (to those who can afford it) some of the loveliest carpets I have ever seen.  Ladies, who have learned carpet-making from their mothers, come to perfect their skills. They stay for a year (I believe), complete one carpet, and take a loom home with them when they leave so that they can continue earning money.  The wool and silk that they use is spun there. We even got the chance to see them harvesting the silk. They put the empty silkworm cocoons in hot water and them pick them up with this little broom.



Pulling the cocoons.

Once they are able to find an end they hook it to a machine and it pulls the thread out. That's not the best description, but it was pretty cool to see.

 

 

It was amazing to watch the women working on the carpets. Only the most talented are able to work with silk because it is so fine it requires both more skill and precision. The wool ones looked difficult to me, but the ladies were working like there was nothing to it.

 

 

After seeing the workers, we were led to a viewing room where they laid out various carpets for us to look at. They even encouraged the kids to get down and crawl around on the carpets.

 

 

 

 

There were so many other fabulous carpets, truly works of art, that I don't have pictures of. We are definitely going to have to go back...