About Kilims

The Turks have produced the largest kilims, usually in two narrow pieces joined, as well as small ones and a multitude of prayer kilims. As a prayer rug, which is carried about with the worshiper, the light and extremely flexible kilim offers obvious advantages. In Turkish kilims, cotton is often used for the white areas, and small details may be brocaded. The kilims of the southern Balkans began as close copies of Anatolian types but have gradually developed into individual styles, such as the black, red, and white kilims of Pirot. In Romania, also, there are varied local fashions, progressively less Oriental in colour and pattern as the distance from Turkey increases. The name kilim is also given to a variety of brocaded, embroidered, warp-faced, and other flat-woven rugs and bags."

Here again we question: Are kilim rugs just floor coverings? No, some are hangings, some are bench or divan covering, etc., etc. Once more a trusted source of information turns out to be at least a bit misleading. The difference between a kilim rug and a carpet or pile rug is that whereas the design visible on the kilim is made by interweaving the variously colored wefts and warps, thus creating what is known as a flatweave, in a pile rug individual short strands of different color, usually of wool, are knotted onto the warps and held together by pressing the wefts tightly against each other. In this case the whole design is made by these separately knotted strands which form the pile, and the patterns become clearly visible after any excessive lengths of the knotted materials are shorn off to create a level surface.

Kilim, a word of Turkish origin, denotes a pileless textile of many uses produced by one of several flatweaving techniques that have a common or closely related heritage and are practiced in the geographical area that includes parts of Turkey (Anatolia and Thrace), North Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia and China.

We believe this definition to be correct though incomplete, because, as all kilim lovers know, no words can convey the romance of the kilim. We try to fill this void by providing in these pages as much detail as possible about the traditions, culture and heritage of kilim-making to make the romance live - and we hope you enjoy it.