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What are Afghan kilims?
Afghan Kilims are flat woven by intertwining the weft and warp threads to create bold patterns with no knots involved. The material used in the knots, warp, or weft threads, is typically silk, cotton, or wool. The carpets and kelims of Afghanistan tend to be primarily made from wool, and are consequently warm and hard wearing.
Afghan kilim sizes
The size of kilims is obviously dictated, in part, by the size of the loom. Nomadic tribes would often weave on a loom small enough to be easily transported, and would therefore produce narrower carpets or kilims than those made on the larger village based looms.
The spread of kilim making
Kilim making, along with Islam, spread through the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asia, with invading armies and traders. Tribal people used the carpets and kelims as floor coverings, saddle bags, horse blankets, and even as bands on round nomadic tents (yurts), or as door flaps.
Dyeing processes
Although natural dyes are still used in carpet and kelim making, synthetic dyes have become quite easily available over the last fifty years, and are now in common use. The yarn must be soaked in a fixing solution of either alum, tin, ferrous sulfate, copper sulfate, or urine, when using natural dyes. After the fixing solution, the yarn is soaked in a bath of dye until the required colour is obtained, and then dried.
Afghan kilim popularity and usage
Kilims are popular throughout the Western world as beautiful floor and wall coverings, with saddle bags being adapted as cushion covers, yurt bands as stair and hall carpets, and kelims incorporated into furniture as a decorative, hard wearing upholstery material.
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