The Bruce Quilt and Joyce Levy

There is a woman in the suburbs of Chicago, Skokie, who is dear to my heart. Joyce Levy, a hippie at heart, has a brilliant mind, a spirit of fire, a passion for textiles, and often lies bed-ridden, imprisoned in a body that has survived cancer but is now tortured by lymphoedema. I met Joyce many years ago when I was teaching quilting at the Textile Arts Centre, a now-defunct wonderful Chicago institution. She had served on the board there and later commissioned me to do four quilts for her.

Bruce, the mathematician

You see, Joyce was not the only one to fight cancer in her family. Her brother and only sibling, Bruce, was taken by the disease. The quilts Joyce commissioned honored Bruce whom she dearly loved. Bruce was a minimalist and little of earthly possessions. But, one thing he had a lot of was t-shirts. Mostly nature themes, some academic ones and some funny ones. My job was to take these shirts and make them into quilts for Bruce's widow, Leslie, his parents, his best friend and finally, one for Joyce.

I was on a roll with the first three. I found that I didn't like working with the t-shirt fabric much and had to use stabilizers to keep them firm and in place. This thickened the fabrics and made quilting them more challenging. I didn't even quilt the first one, for their parents:

Notice how the back sags when it is hung if there is no quilting. In the second one, I used bark cloth and tied the pieces together. I don't have photos of that one, but it was interesting. That one went to his best friend. The third one was for Leslie, Bruce's wife. She didn't want one that was too big, so the project was fairly easy. I did hand quilt this one, following simple lines around the panels. The photo below shows Joyce on the left and Leslie on the right with the front and back of the quilt:


Now, for Joyce's quilt. As she became progressively more incapacitated by the pain inflicted by her condition, she spent more time in bed. She wanted a quilt that she could use and that would be dominated by her favorite color, purple. I got the top and back pretty much finished. That was more than FIVE years ago!!! My life got complicated with my floundering gallery business, I decided I wanted to move from Chicago, had to figure out where to go, how to do it, we closed the gallery, had to get part time work while I went through 20 years of stuff, finally moved, had her quilt in a box forever, and then finally got it finished recently.

You would think that someone might get a bit peeved when they had fully paid for a project and not received it for all this time. Not Joyce. Instead, she hired me for some part-time work during that transitional period between closing the gallery and moving to Paducah. Joyce has a huge collection of Edward Gorey books.
My job was to help catalog them so that she knew what she had and where she needed to continue to grow her collection. Gorey was an eccentric illustrator and writer who was born in Chicago. He died in 2000, leaving an extensive legacy of illustrations, books and contributions. I knew of his work from his PBS intro to the mystery series:



I passed many a pleasant afternoon in Joyce's company, learning about Gorey and enjoying Joyce's rich story-telling of her brother Bruce, her Jewish merchant roots in the South, her world roaming professor father, the Ganesh-collecting mother and all kinds of other fascinating insights into society, history, politics, art, travel, and so on. Joyce is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, yet she can cry as the story demands and laugh through her pain.

So, I moved to Kentucky and her unfinished quilt remained in a box. I was overwhelmed with finding my niche here, getting my online business set up, but more than that, I was faced with the challenge of not having a good work space to finish such a large piece (the quilt is king size). Plus, she wanted it to be thick and fluffy. My machine wouldn't go through it and it would have been a bear to hand quilt it and I didn't think it would look good tied. My quilting skills have improved since I first started working on her commissions, so the floppy look of the first one was no longer acceptable.

The solution came through my friend, Pam, who is a part of my fiber group here in Paducah. This is what she does for a living. She has one of those big, industrial quilting machines. I had made a wallpaper purse which she coveted, so we traded and we're both happy and now Joyce can be happy, too!

Bruce quilt front and back:

I embroidered phrases that Bruce was famous for throughout the quilt. My favorite is "Please answer the questions I forget to ask." The one shown below is also a good one, "I try to make the proper sympathetic noises."

One of the things I like about functional quilts is that when you wrap it around yourself, it's like wearing a big hug. Now Joyce will have her hug from her dear Bruce and hopefully, I can redeem myself with a hug, too.

Greetings, My Favorite Sister!

The Bruce Quilt and Joyce Levy

Women of Tilonia and The Barefoot College

My friend Pam sent me this video entitled "Women of Tilonia":

She knows how much I love ralli quilts and the video shows two women preparing a quilt top for appliqué.


"Wish I could sit like that..." I thought, as I watched the video. Then, I realized I had no idea where Tilonia was. Tilonia? Well, I googled and followed links and was amazed to read on about this place in Rajasthan, India, which hosts the novel concept of a Barefoot College.


This is how they describe themselves:

"The Barefoot College is a place of learning and unlearning. It's a place where the teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher. It's a place where NO degrees and certificates are given because in development there are no experts-only resource persons. It's a place where people are encouraged to make mistakes so that they can learn humility, curiosity, the courage to take risks, to innovate, to improvise and to constantly experiment. It's a place where all are treated as equals and there is no hierarchy.

So long as the process leads to the good and welfare of all; so long as problems of discrimination, injustice, exploitation and inequalities are addressed directly or indirectly; so long as the poor, the deprived and the dispossessed feel its a place they can talk, be heard with dignity and respect, be trained and be given the tools and the skills to improve their own lives the immediate relevance of the Barefoot College to the global poor will always be there."

The college has a focus on handicrafts with workshops in embroidery, sewing, block printing, furniture making, and other traditional crafts.


These are natural extensions of Rajasthan's rich history in all of these crafts. Friends of Tilonia was established to help market the handicrafts:
"Friends of Tilonia, Inc. is a US-based, 501(c)3 non-profit organization established to provide marketing and business development assistance to the crafts section of the Barefoot College, in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India. For more than 35 years, the Barefoot College has been working to address basic needs of the rural poor: water, health, education, energy and employment, while enrolling individuals in the processes that govern their lives.
In 1975, the lack of employment in the villages in Rajasthan forced many of the rural poor to migrate to the cities. While largely an agricultural area, many of the poor in the region were artisans engaged in various crafts. Lacking access to a broader market, these rural artisans abandoned, and still continue today to abandon their trades to seek other, more gainful means of livelihood.
The Barefoot College began promoting rural craft production to address this problem of under-employment. Assistance in improving designs and techniques, creation of marketing outlets, and access to credit have helped to restore and create new income opportunities for craftsmen and women. Training and materials provided by the College also enables women to work from home, helping them to generate income from their needlework or other handicrafts."
Their beautiful website showcases the products made by these artisans as well as photos of the producers, such as the ones I have used in this post. But, the college goes way beyond these efforts and its geographical location. They are tackling issues of malnutrition, illiteracy, health, solar power and many other fundamentals of survival most rural poor face around the world.

Then, I watched this video:

The First Women Barefoot Solar Engineers Of The World

I was absolutely floored! They are bringing rural, illiterate, middle aged women from around the world to live in Tilonia for six months to become solar engineers! As they do not share a common language, all the training is done through drawings and color coding. You have to watch the video to really understand the amazing strategy and potential impact this program has on the participants and the villages they represent.

When I was in college, I learned about Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator who revolutionized the concept of learning, especially when working with literacy and the poor. Wikipedia states:
"More challenging is Freire's strong aversion to the teacher-student dichotomy. This dichotomy is admitted in Rousseau and constrained in Dewey, but Freire comes close to insisting that it should be completely abolished. This is hard to imagine in absolute terms, since there must be some enactment of the teacher-student relationship in the parent-child relationship, but what Freire suggests is that a deep reciprocity be inserted into our notions of teacher and student. Freire wants us to think in terms of teacher-student and student-teacher - that is, a teacher who learns and a learner who teaches - as the basic roles of classroom participation."

The Barefoot College is Freire's dream come true! What a wonderful model this place is for all who are interested in empowering the disenfranchised. When I see programs like this, my hope for the future is renewed. If you are looking for an organization to support, I would say that any support given here is money well spent.

Women of Tilonia and The Barefoot College

Politics in the World of Fiber

I have been reading Obama's books, given to me by my Auntie Nyla. I finished "Dreams from My Father" and am about half way through "The Audacity of Hope". I would have voted for him even before reading the books, but now I feel even better about him. Only six months older than me, much of his experience as an organizer in Chicago coincided with the work I was doing at the same time in social service. While he worked in Black neighborhoods, I was mostly on the North side working with Latinos and mixed populations.

I also identify closely with his search for identity, growing up in such a mixed and multicultural environment. I was raised in Brazil (1962-1980), mostly in Maringa, Parana, a pre-planned city that grew out of new immigrants and settlers. My parents were Lutheran missionaries to a German congregation, my best friend was Japanese, another friend down the street was from Lebanon, my brother's best friend was of Italian descent, and many of our friends descended from African slaves mixed with Dutch colonialists, French, and so on. I was always perceived as an American. Then, when returning to the United States and going straight into a white, Lutheran school, St. Olaf College, where almost everyone looked like me, I experienced a terrific culture shock. My natural disposition connected me like a magnet to the other international or foreign students. Over the years, I continued to feel more comfortable with people who had either spent time overseas or who were from other countries. My father told me as a teenager, "You will be able to live anywhere, but will never be at home anywhere." How visionary of him!

Now, living in the South, it is almost like being in another country, or at least it feels more similar to the Brazil I grew up in. Time moves more slowly, values of friendship and family continue to have priority as compared to the constant rush of the city. Thinking about all of this, has brought back images of art, political debate, culture, and dissent that has had an impact on me in the past. I thought I would reflect a bit on this for today's post.

From Wikipedia:

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. Politics consists of "social relations involving authority or power"^[1] and refers to the regulation of a political unit, ^[2] and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.^[3]

From Artworld Salon, article on dissent.

So, art relating to politics usually gets our attention when it comes in the form of dissent or protest. Several famous people and political leaders have declared dissent as a core pillar of democracy:

Evelyn Beatrice Hall: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. (paraphrasing Voltaire)
George Orwell: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
Harry S Truman: Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
John F. Kennedy: Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed -- and no republic can survive.
Martin Luther King Jr.: Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Mohandas K. Gandhi: Non-cooperation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it demands respect for the opposite views.

Words have always had a powerful effect on my thinking. I remember very few of them, but retain the impact of what I read, if that makes any sense at all. I do remember some t-shirts and posters that were big twenty years ago:

• We are the strangers our mothers warned us against.
• Join the army. Travel to exotic places, meet interesting people and then kill them.
• Nuke the gay whales for Jesus.

Syracuse Cultural Workers is one of the long-time suppliers of posters, t-shirts, buttons, and popular dissent tools for activists in issues concerning social justice. Here are some of their posters:




Che Guevara was one of our heroes when I was growing up in Brazil. Just the image of his face was enough to convey a whole system of thought. Thus, images have even more potential for moving people out of complacency into action.

What I am showing here is pretty tame compared to what is out there. Sometimes, a message can backfire when it is so in-your-face that the viewer becomes turned off and shuts down whatever feeling of empathy might have been had. I think this can happen with images of extreme hunger or war. Humor often works really well for me. Monty Python's "In Search of the Holy Grail" is loaded with wonderful jabs at society. This little piece finds King Arthur in an argument with a peasant. It's even subtitled!



My favorite political satire site, Jib Jab, can be pretty raunchy sometimes, but I think they nail the big issues of the day on the head. Here's one from their site:


It's interesting to look at some of their older ones and realize how quickly much of what is debated in the public arena becomes obsolete so quickly. This is certainly a challenge when an artist decides to address political ideas through his or her work. In examining and recording the decision-making process between those who have power and those who don't, artists interpret history and society from their own unique perspective. Fiber mediums, especially, demand both an enormous time commitment and a viewing platform that are more accessible to other art forms. Historically, the elite have had access to the materials and the time to either execute or commission tapestries, weavings, embroidery, or other fiber work that recorded political events, thus also controlling the message of the piece. This video of the Bayeux Tapestry has been animated and edited to show some action, but look at the size of this thing! 230 feet long! The poor king loses his head in the end...

The Bayeux Tapestry (French: Tapisserie de Bayeux) is a 50 cm by 70 m (20 in by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth which explains the events leading up to the 1066 Norman invasion of England as well as the events of the invasion itself. The Tapestry is annotated in Latin. It is presently exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux, Normandy, France. (Wikipedia)

There is also the ephemeral quality of fiber art. Perhaps there were more reactive pieces that have not survived the passages of time. In more recent history, we have documentation of fiber artists who have told their own stories from their perspective, given coded messages, or profited from political movements. Quilts played an important role during slavery, giving hidden messages to runaways about whether a house was safe on the underground railroad or how to proceed from there.
After the Vietnam War, the Hmong recorded their escape through embroidered Story Cloths. The soldiers, in this case, are good guys, helping them out of harm's way.

Baluchi rug makers began making war rugs to celebrate the defeat of the Russian invasion in the 1970's. These became so popular and collectible, that they now make 9/11 rugs and war rugs with a US theme, some pro, some against, and some just for the sure sale to soldiers and tourists.

Political symbolism comes and goes. The images and text that endure are ones that hit upon universal truths. Obama speaks in his books about the complexity of issues and the difficulty of problem resolution facing our times. His challenge to us all is to build on common ground. It will be interesting to see, if he wins, whether he can take the rhetoric and move it toward workable policies.

Meanwhile, I am especially inspired by artists who address our political problems by offering visions of hope. Hollis Chatelain is one such quilter. I have seen several of her pieces here at the Quilt Museum, and was especially enamored by her huge Tuareg portraits. She uses thread as her color palette, filling up space with machine quilting which can only truly be appreciated when viewing in real life. Many of her quilts are social commentaries, inspiring us towards unity and conservation of resources.

"In February 2002, I dreamed “Hope For our World”. The dream was in purple and Archbishop Tutu was standing in a field. Children from all over the world were approaching him like he was a Pied Piper. The dream seemed to be speaking about World Peace and the Future of our Children. Desmond Tutu represented Hope." Hollis Chatelain

I would love to hear back from the rest of you on what you think the role of art is concerning politics. One article I read about textiles and politics awhile back stated that the general preference is to create "nice" work- flowers, color, pretty scenery, things that don't rock the boat. I like beauty as well as the next person, but I know that when I walk through the Quilt show, the stoppers for me are images that speak about something in a new way. So, is there a place for you in the world of political fiber?

Politics in the World of Fiber

Yolanda: A Lifetime of Embroidery in Patzun, Guatemala

by Erin Stoy


Huipiles are the traditional, hand-woven blouses worn by women in Guatemala, and the designs vary by village. Those made in Patzun feature red or burgundy fabric with thin stripes. They are different from many other Guatemalan huipiles because the adornments are embroidered onto the fabric instead of being woven into it. Yolanda Rodriguez Yos, a 22-year-old woman from Patzun, estimates that 90% of women in her hometown wear traje (traditional Mayan dress). The remaining women work in the capital and wear ropa americana (American clothing) much of the time.

Yolanda's mother taught her second eldest daughter to embroider when she was 12 years old. This is a common age for girls to learn, although daughters of wealthier families may not learn until they are 15 or 20 years old. These wealthier girls do not need to embroider to help the family earn money.

The women of Yolanda's family, however, embroidered huipiles to sell at the Sunday market in Patzun. Yolanda believes that about 85% of women in Patzun know how to embroider. For families like hers, it is too expensive to purchase completed huipiles, so they purchase fabric from local weavers and create and embroider the huipiles themselves. The Rodriguez Yos family purchases its fabric from an aunt, who weaves but does not embroider.

As a young teenager, Yolanda would go to school until noon, come home and eat lunch, then work on embroidery from 1:00-6:00pm. After a break for dinner, she would embroider again from 7:00pm-midnight. Her mother would have one huipil made by Yolanda; one by her older sister, Erika; and one by herself to take to the market each Sunday. The exchange rate is currently 7.38 quetzales per dollar. Each huipil would sell for about 175Q, 110Q of which was materials (70Q for woven fabric and 45 for thread). That left a whopping 65Q (less than US$9) for 70 hours of work! And most of that money had to be re-invested in fabric and thread for the next huipil.


Yolanda's sister, Erica, began embroidering at age eight and never liked it. Yolanda laughs that Erica's huipiles would feature about four flowers, whereas the average one has about 20. Yolanda and her mother frequently had to finish Erika's huipiles to get them ready to sell. Yolanda enjoyed using her imagination to design flowers and choose colors, which remain her favorite aspects of embroidery. (Sewing the randa, or piece that joins the two pieces of woven fabric, is the part she likes the least.)

"Randa", embroidery covering the seam between two pieces of fabric.

For Christmas, each girl would receive fabric and thread in order to make a huipil for herself.

Yolanda is particularly efficient in her embroidery, in that it takes her one week to do what it takes many women two to four weeks to do. Instead of layering two colors on top of each other, making the embroidery very thick, she interconnects the different colors, making only one layer of thread. This saves not only time, but also money spent on thread. And she prefers the finished look to that of the thicker embroidery.

The basic steps for creating a huipil from Patzun, if one is starting with cloth already made:

1. Sew two panels of fabric together. This embroidery can be done in patterns of triangles, jugs, straight lines, or knots in the form of flowers.

2. Choose the shape of the collar opening shape: round, square, diamond, or star.

3. Divide the fabric into visual quadrants. With pen,draw flowers, leaves, and buds. (Some women, like Yolanda, prefer to draw and then embroider one quadrant at a time.) Be very careful when drawing the circle around the collar to make sure you're not going lopsided. The design should be the same in all four quadrants, but the colors can be different on the front and back. This is the step in which the embroiderer can use the most creativity and imagination, selecting a combinations of colors and designing the flowers. Keep in mind the question of purpose: Is the huipil for a wedding or fiesta or for everyday use? This will help determine the formality of the design.

4. Design sleeve adornments, if they will be used. Some people prefer large flowers here, some small, some none at all. Yolanda's mother is of the belief that there should be very little adornment on the sleeves, if any. Large flowers are too extravagant, the equivalent of wearing too much jewelry or makeup.

5. Complete embroidery.

6. Sew sides of huipil.

Yolanda has made about 200 huipiles in her life (10 are ones she wears even today) but hasn't done much embroidery in the last three years. Between her social work studies at a local university, her English classes, and her job as a housekeeper, she hasn't had any extra time for sewing. However, she would like to do more in the future, and plans to teach her future daughters because it's a valuable skill for Guatemalan women to have.


Erin Stoy of La Chapina Huipil Crafts is an American whoʼs lived in Guatemala for over a year, caring for the daughter she and her husband are in the process of adopting. During her time in Guatemala,she has developed a passion for Mayan textiles; she has been selling arts and crafts she makes from used huipiles (traditional, hand-woven Guatemalan blouses) since October 2007. Her blog is http://huipil-crafts.blogspot.com and her Etsy shop is http://lachapina.etsy.com.

This photo of Erin with her daughter, Azucena, was taken in November, 2007.

Yolanda: A Lifetime of Embroidery in Patzun, Guatemala

Guest Artist: Erin Stoy of La Chapina Huipil Crafts

Used huipil Erin purchased in Santiago Atitlan's market.

Erin Stoy is an American who’s lived in Guatemala for over a year, caring for the daughter she and her husband are in the process of adopting. The case has been frought with difficulties, making their stay an unusually long one. Despite the financial and emotional stress of the situation, Erin is grateful that – as Azucena’s legal foster mother in Guatemala – she and her husband have had the opportunity to have their little girl with them since the age of eight months. Another positive thing to come from the experience has been Erin’s new passion for Guatemalan textiles; she has been selling arts and crafts she makes from used huipiles (traditional, hand-woven Guatemalan blouses) since October 2007.

Erin with Azucena in Nov '07.

In August of 2007, a local orphanage was raided here in Guatemala, and political tensions surrounding international adoption were running very high. Agencies began suggesting that fostering parents, like us, stay inside with our kids until things calmed down. Rumors abounded that the police were going to question any gringos they saw with Guatemalan children. So for close to two months, I only left the apartment with our daughter, Azucena, a handful of times.

Market in Santiago Atitlan

As one would imagine, being confined to apartment grounds with a toddler for that long was challenging. Eager for something to do while Azucena napped or played on her own, I started looking at craft blogs for inspiration. I hand-sewed about 20 stuffed animals and little dolls out of Azucena’s outgrown baby clothes and, later, felt. It was a fun diversion from the stressful reality of our situation.

Baby Doll

I had long thought something really pretty could be made from the embroidered collars of huipiles. Once I got the sewing bug, I started visiting a shop here in Antigua that frequently had used collars and other huipil scraps for sale. The first things I made were some pillows that featured collars from Chichicastenango; I embroidered Spanish words like “esperanza” (hope) and “amistad” (friendship) within the circle formed by the collar.

One of the pillows Erin made from a huipil collar from Chichi.

For my next project, I purchased several small of bags of huipil scraps in order to make Christmas ornaments for some family members back home. Afterwards, I posted photos of the ornaments on my personal blog, and the next thing I knew, I had people leaving comments saying they wanted to buy sets for their own families. An online friend who was coming to Guatemala kindly offered to transport any items I sold back to the US for shipping through the USPS. I accepted and was thrilled to have the opportunity to earn some money to help with the many expenses we were incurring by having to maintain households in both the US and Guatemala. Largely through word of mouth throughout the online adoption world, I ended up selling about $2500 worth of Christmas ornaments over the next couple months.

Christmas ornaments.

After Christmas, I began making new items from the huipil fabric, including animals, simple baby dolls, fabric magnets inspired by Semana Santa street carpets, and personalized art for children’s rooms. Lately I’ve been doing more collages. This spring, I moved the craft items from my personal blog to a separate crafts blog and opened a shop on Etsy. I hope to continue making and selling arts and crafts from these beautiful used Guatemalan textiles; they are too lovely not to be re-purposed and enjoyed. Maybe I’ll even get a sewing machine when I get back to the States!

Christmas ornaments.

Erin’s work as can be seen on huipil-crafts.blogspot.com and lachapina.etsy.com.

Guest Artist: Erin Stoy of La Chapina Huipil Crafts

Book Review: Traditional Textiles of Central Asia by Janet Harvey

As a companion to yesterday's article on Afghan Tribal Arts, I thought this book review would be a good complement. Traditional Textiles of Central Asia is my favorite book on these textiles and has a great deal of information on the history and use of items both Abdul and I carry.


My book actually has a different cover, a weaving with tassels and beads. Published in 1996 by Thames and Hudson, it has 262 gorgeous illustrations, 212 of them in color and 2 maps. There are plenty of people photos, showing the textiles in their cultural context, which I always enjoy, and the rest are excellent product photos with descriptions of their use.

The book is divided into four sections:

1. History and Motifs (nomads and settled peoples, trade routes, jenghis khan, foreign influences, etc,)
2. Materials and Dye (wool, silk and sericulture, cotton, dye sources and dyeing)
3. Felts, Weaving and Dress (nomad felts, woven fabrics, nomad and village weavings, looms, flat weaves, knotted pile, covers, hangings, ikat, etc)
4. Applied Decoration (embroidery, nomad, village and urban traditions, block printing and fabric painting

These topics cover a vast amount of information, any of which have books written specifically addressing particular traditions or crafts. Harvey's book serves as an introduction to the region and its traditions, an overview which brings it all together. Specialists can then zoom in on their particular interests.

Harvey describes her journey in the preface:

"I travelled widely, using local transport, along the bumpy tracks which are the ancient 'ways' of nomadic tribes. Occasionally, a family would be on the move, the animals laden with woven bags and the women magnificent in their dresses. In nomad encampments the activity of producing the essential fabrics and furnishings was apparent at once in the warp pegged out on the ground, and piles of shorn fleece waiting to be made into felt or spun. ...

Although the pace of social change has accelerated in the past decades, warps are still being pegged out on the desert ground, and women continue to gain status with their exquisite embroidery. I have no doubt that when I next return I shall again find a man from Hazarajat standing on a street corner selling from his barrow piled high with gloves, socks, pullovers and hats knitted by the people of his village." (page 6)


Harvey's book covers textile traditions of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizistan, Tajikistan, Kohistan, and Eastern Turkestan, areas known traditionally as the silk road of Asia. Much of this terrain is austere with either mountains or desert environments demanding hardiness from its inhabitants. War and social turmoil have also created chaos in the past decades leading to a further dwindling of resources. Deforestation under the Russian occupation in the 1970's, as an example, has made wood a precious commodity. Wool and silk continue to provide warmth and functional materials for clothing, blankets, bags, carpets, and wall hangings.

Following are some examples of items that I carry that with text that Janet Harvey uses to describe similar work in her book:

Textiles are woven primarily for utilitarian functions, but also important in the nomad culture is tribal identity, manifest particularly in the decorative appearance of the textiles. Despite the common factors of a simple loom-type, wool yarn and dyes, the weavings of the Turkmen tribes, the Uzbek, Kifghiz, Khazakh, Karakalpak, Balouch and other tent-dwellers of Central Asia, are astonishingly diverse in their structures, colourings and decorative patterns, even when fulfilling similar functions. (page 72)


Lacking vegetable fibres to make baskets and wood for furniture, nomads turn to woven bags (known generally as kep throughout Central Asia) to store and transport their possessions. The wealth and status of a family is judged by the number and quality of the bags that hang from the lattice of the tent to store clothing, bedding, domestic items and hunting equipment, or are slung from sides of camels, horses and donkeys when the tribe moves camp. The gol and decorative patterns woven on the bag-face are the badges of tribal identity. (page 89)



The skill of weaving is not only a respected but also valuable asset among the Central Asian tribes. As well as being a necessity of nomadic existence, the woven rugs are an insurance against hard times. During periods of drought or other hardship the men of the family will clear the home of surplus rugs and weavings and sell them in the bazaar. (page 71)
Sun-disc motif, rooted in ancient beliefs, decorate a bolim posh, the canopy held over the bride and groom during the wedding ceremony. (The one pictured is a Suzani from the 1970's or 1980's. Harvey's photo is much older.)


Embroidery is considered a protective element in its own right. Worked round garment-openings like sleeves and pockets, it guards the wearer from harmful forces. ... Hooked disc motifs to guard the hem and side-slits of a Turkmen robe, worked in lacing stitch (kesdi) and chain stitch. (pages 37, 38)


Religious and social edicts frobidding the wearing of pure silk resulted in the use of silk warps with cotton weft. Turkmenistan women's gowns made in rich red adras (plain-weave) silk-and-cotton. (page 111)


Gul-i-peron, 'dress flowers', small embroidered felt discs designed to be stitched to clothing, bags, and animal trappings. Emblems of good fortune such as beads, cowrie-shells and metal discs are all incorporated, and metal thread is often used to work the pattern. The discs are widely used and have a long history. Examples have been found in burials dated before 400 BC. (page 40) (Abdul has several of these listed in his Etsy store.)

Rug woven in slit-tapestry or kelim technique, a method producing clearly defined geometric shapes. Each region has distinctive patterns and colours. This example is from the Maimana area in northern Afghanistan. (page 79)


Turkman bag for storing clothes, with knotted-pile face displaying the tribal gol. (page 82)

This is just a small sampling of the fascinating textile traditions Harvey covers in her book. She has extensive information on felting and ikat, neither of which I have samples at the moment. This book is a must have for anyone interested in this region, its culture and the weaving, dyeing, embroidery, and other techniques used in Central Asia.

Book Review: Traditional Textiles of Central Asia by Janet Harvey