KILIM SUMAK EMBROIDERED 141 X 103 cm

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.