Bakhtyari rugs and poppies of snowy mountains

A bakhtyari rug -  photos of this post are from some Bakhtyari rugs my parents have at home - I had to cut parts of them due privacy reasons and therefore odd margins - sorry for that.

Hey adorable rug lovers,

At winter, when Zogrous Mountain wears its beautiful white gown, nomadic people of Bakhtyari have their beautiful red and yellow rugs to remind them of spring.

A yalameh runner

Spring in that area of Iran, is a sacred season. After such a long and harsh winter, wild poppies and yellow buttercups grow everywhere on the slops of Zagrous. In this bewitching landscape, everything has a tale: every humming spring running aimlessly through rocks, every proud mountain peak, every bird, and even the flock of sheep breeding in those green slops. 

Ancient people of Bakhtyari have woven their amazingly warm and beautiful rugs for thousand of years. These rugs not only have kept them warm through ages but also reminded them of the warm and beautiful spring, of poppies and of buttercups. They weave their dreams into their rugs. What a nice way of preserving dreams! After all, no matter how cold and dark is winter, spring will come. (by the way, that is the main analogy used by our Persian parents to teach us hope)

Bakhtyaris have fluffy sheep (that is, good quality wool),  colorful wild flowers (and so natural vegetable dye),  imaginative people who have always needed to keep warm during winter, and an ancient history that goes back 7000 years. Mix it together and you get RUGS ! So there you go. 

Bakhtyari rugs are thick, colorful, VERY warm , and are known to be long lasting. Yalameh , a small village on the border of Bakhtyari makes very valuable rugs. Be mindful of some sellers (not all of course) that might sell you rugs with synthetic dye. I will write more on how to distinguish natural dye from synthetic dye.
Unlike city rugs, most nomadic rugs (not all), have no pre designed pattern. That make them more human even though they do not have the same artistic value as - lets say-  Isfahan rugs.

XO
Your Persian with love !

My Isfahan rug, and why I cherish it.

Hey cuties,

I know it is not a well taken photo but this is my beauty: Silk foundation, mixture of silk and wool pile. It has nearly 120 knots in each cm square. Signed by the artist Abbass Mansouri, a celebrated artist from Isfahan who combines traditional designs with modern motifs borrowed from ancient Persian art. I cannot say how much I LOVE his work.  My other favourit Persian rug artist from Isfahan is Davari.  

This rug is very nostalgic for me: the central medallion reminds me of those exotic blue china cups with flower design that my grandmother gave my mom. We used them for Norouz (Persian new year).
On the field (the blue background) I can see our garden, flowers, butterflies (see how many you could find), the beautiful pond we had in the garden with blue tiles, vine tree branches (just like our garden).  On its border I can traces of Persepolis, the ancient Persian capital I used to visit in summer with my family.   This rug "is" a piece of my home and my mother gave it to me so I can take a piece of our home with myself everywhere I go. 

I have one of the greatest mothers on the planet. She is an educated woman, a great educator (now retired) and the kindest human I have ever seen.  She loves books, good food, classic music, our Persian cat, my dad's black almond eyes (LOL), and of course Persian rugs. Not in any particular order! ;)

She is over 70 yr old but has one of the sharpest mind I have ever seen. She can repair everything from the dishwasher to the oven or even water pipes. She once decided to do kick boxing to encourage my little niece to exercise. You get the idea. Oh  and she cooks so well you would eat the food with the plate. She is my idol, my mother, my teacher, and my best friend.  She lives in the other side of the world and I miss her every second. 

One day, I was walking with her in Isfahan bazar.  I had saved for some time to buy an Isfahan rug and I was looking for something within my budget. We saw this great masterpiece but no way I could afford it (I could barely afford half of it). Long story short: she FORCED me to let her to pay for it. And finally I agreed that she pays for the amount that was outside my budget. So we brought this beauty home to dad's astonishment! :D

Mom suggested to find a name for it. We name things we love (we are a crazy family). Mom even names her flower pots. So we called my rug Fereshteh which means "angel" in Persian. 

The rug reminds me of mom. She is my REAL angel of course. It also reminds me of all of those strong and caring women who work many hours a day to weave Persian rugs. Majority of them have NO Persian rugs themselves but they weave them to support their family. They spend months or years bent over a large loom, knotting thousands or millions of threads. It is a very hard quest, but in doing so they bring a piece of heaven to our lives, maybe to remind us how art and love has no borders.

Speaking of love, Love is ancient, mysterious, beautiful and immortal - just like a Persian rug. So cherish your rug and what it means. Like I do. 

your Persian with love,

<3 

How to decorate your home after buying a Persian rug.

Hey adorable people,

I know I have been away for TOO long ! I just forgot to show up. I am a bit like that fish .. Dori ;)

You saved and saved and searched and searched. Finally you got that colorful wooly or silky piece of heaven: soft, colorful, sophisticated and enchanting. Now what ?

You need to rearrange your home to accommodate this beauty. Right? Here is my two cents :

1. Size: Your rug needs to be smaller than your room. Small enough so you can still see parts of the tiles (about 50 cm from each side, and maybe more). That is, covering your floor from wall to wall with a rug  is not a good idea. 
2. Color: Your rug does not need to match your furniture, curtain or wall paper. But it needs to create a good color compositions. It is like choosing the right colors for your dress. If you don't know about the color wheel , please look at this article.  
• There are some extra considerations though. For example, if you have yellow wall paper, you don't want a red rug, unless you are doing a commercial for McDonald's. 
• Never ever use a rug which matches exactly your tiles unless you want to conceal your rug from burgers. 
• There are lots of nomadic red rugs  from Yalameh (in Bakhtyari) or  Ghashghai (aka Qashghai, Qashqai).  Red rugs give lots of life to homes with light color furniture (white tiles etc). They go well with cream or caramel tiles too.  
• You gonna look at your rug a lot (I know you do , don't pretend you don't). So if you are the stressed type, you might want a green or blue rug. Central Iran (Kashan, Isfahan in particular) does lots of blue or green. Go for it. Matching green and blue with other colors is easy and they have a bit of edginess to them.
• If your babies, pets, or yourself are not toilet trained, don't buy rugs with white or cream background.  Lots of rugs from Nain have very light background (not all of them). 
3. Invest in buying some cool stuff: Turkish lamps, Persian miniatures, other handicrafts from Persia (Minakari, Khatam etc), rug stools, pottery , glasswork, box frame tables, antiques etc. It just gives your home an updated oriental look. 
4. Nomadic rugs, demand cool edgy decoration with lots of "thing-ish" things if you know what I mean. But city rugs demand a more elegant and classic look . More formal. I personally love nomadic rugs for bedrooms and city rugs for the living room. 
5. Lighting, lighting , lighting ! If you have a rug at home, you have a painting masterpiece. So get the lighting right. Some extra colored lamps could be nice for that mysterious oriental look when you have dinner guests. 
6. Go get a shoe rank and a door mat if you don't have one. Walking with dirty shoes on a Persian rug is ... sorry ... gross !
7. Over-sized furniture + a pretty Persian rug would look like an elephant in a kimono . Don't do it. It is not the size that matters. It is the proportion. I know what you just thought. You have a dirty mind. 
8. If you gonna place a coffee or dinning table over your rug, make sure you choose a thick colorful rug (nomadic rugs). It is not only because you want your rug to last longer but also because the rug should capture attention when it is mostly hidden under the furniture. 
9. Do not have too many rugs on your floor and on your walls unless you work in a Persian rug shop. If you need several rugs to cover a large room, that is absolutely ok but leave enough empty space between them. 
10. Try to go for simpler curtains. If your curtains have too much texture, a busy colorful Persian rug makes your home look like an oriental fortune teller's home with fizzy hair. You also might need a simple table cloth if you have a rug under the table. 
11. Runners are great things. They really make your corridor look great. Persians love them. Yalameh runners are just yummy and they have the same patterns as other Yalameh rugs. 
12. If you have an old aunt at home, don't use silk rugs. They are very slippery. Even if your aunt is rich, childless and grumpy, still make sure the rug is not slippery. 
13. Look at some Persian homes to see how they decorate their home. We Persians love having a well designed home (because for much of our history we have had to hide from our rulers). 

 Your Persian with LOVE <3