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Soumak
more
intricate patterning can be done by wrapping colored yarns around the
warps--usually single warps or pairs. Most commonly, rows of this
pattern-yarn wrapping alternate with thin, plain-weave ground wefts.
Because the technique is time-consuming, it has frequently been used for
bags and other small, sturdy weavings.
Soumak wrapping most often covers entire surfaces, although
occasionally figures are scattered about on open, plain-weave fabrics.
Exquisite examples come from the Caucasus, from northwestern Iran, and
from a few other areas. Kurdish weavers in eastern Turkey have sometimes
produced weftless soumak bags--with no
intervening ground wefts.
Variations in soumak
structures occur when the direction of wrapping is altered, or when the
weaver outlines her design in diagonal directions. Sometimes the yarn
segments are offset; other times the structure is reversed, so that the
usual back side serves instead as the front. There are few design
restrictions with these techniques, and so motifs have often been borrowed
from other weaving traditions. The hooked motif on the soumak Shahsevan
mafrash (bedding bag) panel above is
an old standard slit-tapestry kilim design.
Weft substitution weaves
Fine designing
has been done by Moroccan, Algerian, Baluch, Turkmen and Persian Afshar
weft-substitution weavers; they
substitute variously colored wefts as desired in otherwise perfectly plain
weaves. Although there is not an easy popular label for this technique,
the structure is distinctive. Complex geometric designs are executed
entirely by hand. The loom does not, in some magical sort of way, help
with the patterning. Moroccan weavers work from the fabric's back side,
Asian weavers more often from the front.
Like tapestry, this is a weft-faced weave: we see the warps only where
they emerge at the end of a weaving as fringe. As the weaver uses first
one color, then substitutes another in the intricate patterning, she
either lets the unused yarns float on the rug's back side, forming a thick
padding, or she cuts her yarns and lets the ends hang loose on the back.
Afshar, Baluch, and
Turkmen weavers have most often arranged intricate weft-substitution
patterns in series of crosswise bands. The structure is also used
commonly in small borders at the ends of Baluch pile rugs, providing an
effective textural contrast. Moroccan Berbers have pushed the design
possibilities of weft substitution to an extreme, producing allover
patterning with incredible detail.
Brocading
although they are often
mistaken for embroidery, brocaded
designs are produced entirely on the loom, as the fabric is woven. Soft,
lustrous pattern yarns are interlaced entirely by hand, and these pattern
rows alternate with thin, plain-weave ground wefts. With most kinds of
brocading, the weaver works facing the back of the textile. She interlaces
each pattern yarn back and forth in its own pattern area, using small
finger skeins which dangle on the back when not in use. The inlaid
brocading on Turkmen tent bands is an exception; it is worked from
the front, and is often combined with knotted pile
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