Bayram’s Story

This is Bayram and his family

Coming from a Turkmen family of Konya Plain settled many generations back, Bayram gains his life by weaving carpets and other tribal textiles which is the heritage of his nomadic roots. First time we met Bayram, he told us about his passion towards carpets but also his passion for making his three children study in university. He suffered so much about being economically unable to study during his childhood; he now wants to change this destiny for his children. Although he knew how to weave carpets, he had no idea about how to weave nomadic sacks. That means the knowledge of weaving nomadic sacks has been forgotten among his community. We thought him how to weave the sacks but we had a problem. Due to technical reasons these sacks should be woven from the back side from where the front side cannot be seen. In a certain point the weaver is lost within the pattern and couldn’t decide how to proceed.

(Appearance of a nomadic sack woven from the reverse side during the weaving process)

(During the weaving process of a nomadic sack)

Because of this technical problem our production of nomadic sacks with Bayram had stopped. Desperately, we and Bayram were looking each other without any words…. After some weeks our friend and a very well-known antique tribal textiles collector Sonny Berntsson succored us from this trouble with very clever and old information. Sonny’s best friend Musa Bulduk and her wife were from Tavşançalı village of Konya plain and immigrated to Sweden 40 years ago. But before this, Musa’s wife was weaving nomadic sacks in her village. She told Sonny Berntsson that they were all using a small mirror to be put underneath the warps to see the pattern during the weaving process from the reverse side. Such a key info!!!

The most exciting moments lived during the first application of this freshly obtained info to the weaving loom. AND….

The result was not only successful, but such a beautiful thing spread out of the talented hands of Bayram. At the end of the job, after 10 sacks have been woven by him, Bayram requested that the patterning cartoons stay with him; he was smiling while saying he wanted to continue weaving sacks for the family’s own use at home and also maybe for other commercial orders that would come from the carpet producing market too. By sending us back to Istanbul, in front of the door he was saying, come on! We were nomads once and I want to continue what my ancestors produced during centuries. We were all more than happy. Now Bayram asks time to time the schedule of our tours to visit us at least once in a suitable time. Bayram, you are always welcome to join us. 🙂

(A nomadic sack woven by Bayram)