We have just been in Istanbul and visited the Topkapi Palace again. There's an exhibit at the moment in the building nominally devoted to the Sultans' costumes which has a few silk patchworks. Most were of only historical interest, but the two to the right of the door as you go in were good, particularly the Central-Asian-style one built up out of one basic block, half an equilateral triangle with stripes (about 8 of them) running at right angles to the diagonal, the whole block being about two inches high - the effect the setting produced was similar to the stripes often done in ribbon in Uzbek and Kirghiz clothing. In this case they made strange hexagonal maze shapes, not much like the generic "Islamic tiles" you see in so many books. They came from another tradition entirely, presumably the pre-Islamic Turkic steppe.
We couldn't find any book in either English or Turkish devoted to Ottoman patchwork, the ogre on duty won't allow any photos, and I didn't have a notebook and a set of coloured pencils to draw these properly. Anybody seen these reproduced anywhere? Or anyone visiting soon and want to try a discreet picture with their flash turned off?
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