Family Tradition
The respect and the special care with which Daniel Ishaki handles the process of creation of carpets is hereditary. Since more than three decades the Ishaki family is dedicated to the creation and sales of carpets.
In the beginning Joseph Ishaki, his father, founded a manufacture of silk yarn in Bursa (Turkey).
Laterwards, in Hereke, he opened a shop in order to sell their products. The knowhow acquired during the years were reflected in the high quality of the end product which helped the family establish another center of production in Kayseri, in the Capadocian region of central Turkey which is equipped with more than 10000 looms and two shops in Istanbul named Ekol and Susler.
The proof of this professionalism is the worldwide recognition of Ishaki family after participating in different international fairs in Germany, France or United States. Nowadays, the family business is administrated by David Ishaki, brother of Daniel.
Daniel decided to bring this knowhow to Occident moving to Barcelona in 1989. Since then we can feel the aroma of turkish bazars in Alfombras Ishaki, in the Sarria district of Barcelona.
Decades of creation
The essential techniques used to create and fabricate a carpet didn't change too much during centuries neither for the nomads nor for the factories. Because of physical facts the looms used by nomads used to be more lightweight and less precise compared to ones used in workshops. The mobile nature of nomad people oblige them to use material which are easy to transport. The loom normally consists of two bars placed horizontally nailed to the ground. The roller is moved by the artesans as they are creating the knots between the bars until they complete weaving the carpet. Normally these looms are good for weaving small sized carpets and rugs. On the contrary the looms in the workshops which can be placed vertically permit weaving bigger carpets precisely. As more pieces can be used in the design of the tools, the artesan would have more possibilities during the creation.
The knots used can be different. For example the persian and turkish knots which are more commonly used or the tibetan knots or the spanish knots which are less known. The difference between the Turkish and Persian knots are that the Persian knot covers a pair of lines of a sequence asymmetrically while the Turkish one is symmetric.
The material most used in the creation of carpets is wool, being the oldest and the most used; cotton which permits the application of more knots per metersquere helps creating a dense product which is therefore more durable and resistant; and the silk, the noble material for its nature yields that a carpet has a special shiny and brilliant finishing. All of these materials can be used seperately or in combination with others.
These materials are dyed manually, with natural color pigments and also lately with synthetic pigments.
The fact that these carpets are handcrafted and artesanals in some cases we can observe irregularities and imperfections and even changes in the tonality of colors all along the carpet. This effect is called as Abrach effect. This should not be considered as lack of quality, but on the contrary, it should be thought of a sign of authenticity.
