A pile decorated Tekke ak-mafrash

Hi People,

Pile decoration on a flatweave is uncommon in Turkmen textiles, except in the tentbands (which are, themselves, pretty uncommon, come to think about it). I own a Tekke "ak-mafrash" that has this feature. You've seen it before, but here it is again to refresh your memory:



The white bands with the zigzag decoration are, like tentbands, pile decoration on a flatweave. You can see similar patterns of pile in some of the small panels that separate the large ones in the Salon tentband.

I wondered whether the peculiar knotting that is characteristic of the tentbands was used here, too. It isn't. The pile decorated flatweave sections of the ak-mafrash are knotted in the typical Tekke manner: asymmetric knots open to the right, over two adjacent warps.

So the "three warp" symmetric knotting that is almost universal in Turkmen pile decorated tentbands isn't a technique that they used for anything they made that had pile on flatweave background. It seems to be tentband-specific.

Regards,

Steve Price

Steve -

Did you notice whether the pile sections have only one shoot of weft between rows of knots?

This occurs in some finer Tekke weaving and this would seem like a likely occasion for it.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi John

I didn't notice, but it is very finely woven, so that is probably the case.

Regards,

Steve Price

Factory

Hi Steve, John,

Mine has two, very fine wefts.
And it seems there was a factory somewhere, spitting out spoonbags

And, I think that this "3 warp" construction is more balanced than a "2 warp" construction.
Because if the loops aren't cut (into piles) all the loops are the same length (3 warps wide)
Not so with the "symmetrical 2 adjacent warps " construction. It's 0 warp and 2 warps jump etc.

What do i mean?
Because the "3 warp" construction in an offset setting with one weft, could make the knot-loops behave like Ying & Yang. This is handy if you try to create a world on a narrow platform.

The more I see it,
the more I like it.
It seems "more natural" like 1 + 1 = 3

One problem:
All these bands show thick wefts.

Best regards,
Vincent