apa's felt carpets from Almaluu, and a loom for yours
Burul-apa was born in 1951 in Almaluu. Before my mother was born she worked some years at the felt and carpet combine in Talas, cutting, and then she came home and made felt for the family and for the neighbours' weddings. She has never counted how many. "More than the sheep we've had," she says. Here are the ones in our house, redrawn by me in code, felt by felt. The cord, the stitches and the lumps are on purpose.
1972 · 2 × 3 m · red and dark blue · kochkor müyüz, four to a square
Apa's first real shyrdak, made with her mother and two aunts for her own sep (dowry) when she married. Six squares of ram's horns, the water border all round. It went with her to grandfather's house on a cart, and it is still on the floor of the big room. The red has gone soft, like old brick.
1998 · 1.5 × 2 m · ochre and brown · kosh müyüz
Made for my mother's sep. My mother wanted green, apa said ochre. Ochre won. Double horns, every second square the colours swapped: apa cut it from two felts lying one on the other, so this carpet has a twin, brown on ochre, at my aunt's in Talas.
2011 · chair size · white and dark red · gül
Apa learned the flower from a woman from the Chatkal at a fair, who said the Chatkal makers put it on everything. A cross with three points at each end and a ring in the middle. On white felt, because apa says white felt is for good things only.
2015 · 2 × 2.5 m · pressed, not cut
Not a shyrdak: an ala kiyiz. The coloured wool is laid on the white before rolling, and the pattern is pressed in, so the edges are soft, like a picture seen through steam. Quicker to make, and warm. It lives in my uncle's yurt in summer.
2019 · 0.7 × 2.4 m · blue and green · tumar
A long one for the corridor, so that whoever comes in walks over the amulets. Apa made it the winter her knees were bad, sitting, so the triangles are all a bit different. She says that's how you know a person made it.
2025 · 1 × 1.4 m · orange and teal · at izi and ram's horn
My first one, with apa next to me saying 'no, no, smaller stitches'. Horse tracks in the middle, because I wanted to be going somewhere. The cord is crooked in two places. Apa says leave it, so the carpet has somewhere for the bad luck to get out.
Every carpet apa sells at the bazaar in Talas gets a cloth tag sewn in the corner with her name. People come back and ask for "the woman from Almaluu". That's her.
Uyalar.net
