Day 98-MarJ's Turkoman Rug

It is such a lovely day today, the weather is almost as perfect as last Saturday when we were hosting the most exhausting birthday party for a 9 year old. So lovely that Maya thought she should be working outdoors today and so she gathered her things, one of which was the lovely Turkoman stitched by MarJ, my housemate and the one who started me on this crazy mini journey.

This design with its simplified cruciform, lozenge-shaped guls (elephant's paw prints), was derived from a carpet believed to have been acquired in Kahgar, the most westerly city in China, close to the border with Kirgizstan. It displays some similarity to Yomud or Beshir weavings, but its exact origin and age are obscure.

The pattern is from Making Miniature Oriental Rugs & Carpets by Meik & Ian McNaughton. This book has to be my most worn mini how-to-book todate.

FRONT

Marj started this rug around the same time I started my 1st one, maybe a week after, in the 1st week of March this year. She finished everything except the edging sometime in August or September, about a couple of months after I finished my 2nd one.

BACK

Thanks to very wrong instructions by me to only use 2 threads, Marj have had to sew over her 1st work again to avoid "patches" where the threads were too thin. Athough she didn't use frames, it is obvious that she did a great job of keeping the carpet straight. She used a 18 count canvas (we will use this until we use up all the cloth) and 3 different coloured threads.

The reason why this post came so late was because I only finished the edging 2 weekends ago, over 2 sessions. I think this carpet is fantastic, way better than mine and I am not being modest. Thank you, MarJ for a very precious gift to the palace because I don't know who else will want to spend this kind of time for something that has not yet been built.

In the meantime, Maya is enjoying the rug tremendously. I must say the rug really shows off the splendour of Maya working in the grass.