Monday, June 22, 2009

Buying more Turkish rugs














We decide post-buy to visit shops in another part of Istanbul. We look at jewelry and antiques and hand-painted tiles and we spend a lot of time looking at stunning susannahs and bedspreads from Uzbekistan. My friend Ann talks about the need to subsidize local artisans and that is a cause I can believe it!

Then we walk past an unpretentious shop selling kilims (flat-woven rugs) and carpets. This little bald guy suggests we come in and see what he has promising no pressure to buy and we agree. Drew has rugs but no kilims so why not? 

Well, the guy was good to his word and he was fascinatingly informed. He showed us carpets made from redoing old camel bags and different patterns and stitches and colors from various areas he deals with, buying family pieces put up for sale when people need some cash, not stuff made for commerce. After 90 minutes, Drew owned two of these. I was jealous, because, again, even having just bought a gorgeous rug, we were suffering rug-flu and you want all the carpets in the world. 

The deal was struck so unexpectedly and fast this time we hadn't even had tea. He served us some while he filled out the certificate of authenticity and folded Drew's carpets to be put into the obligatory cheap vinyl bag.

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