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24-421: Many motifs are used in traditional kilims , handmade flat-woven rugs, each with many variations. In Turkish Anatolia in particular, village women wove themes significant for their lives into their rugs, whether before marriage or during married life. Some motifs represent desires, such as for happiness and children; others, for protection against threats such as wolves ( to the flocks ) and scorpions, or against

48-418: A cross symbol (Turkish: Haç ), or averted with the symbol of a hook (Turkish: Çengel ), a human eye (Turkish: Göz ), or an amulet (Turkish: Muska ; often, a triangular package containing a sacred verse). The carpet expert Jon Thompson explains that such an amulet woven into a rug is not a theme: to the weaver, it actually is an amulet, conferring protection by its presence. In his words, to people in

72-409: A man and engagement. It wasn't always collected in a special chest, hence the alternative UK term bottom drawer , which refers to putting aside one drawer in a chest of drawers for collecting the trousseau undisturbed, but such a chest was an acceptable gift for a girl approaching a marriageable age. Contents of a "hope chest" or "glory box" included typical dowry items such as clothing (especially

96-462: A motif is the granny square . Motifs may be varied or rotated for contrast and variety, or to create new shapes, as with quilt blocks in quilts and quilting . Contrast with motif-less crazy quilting . Motifs can be any size, but usually all the motifs in any given work are the same size. The patterns and stitches used in a motif may vary greatly, but there is almost always some unifying element, such as texture, stitch pattern, or colour, which gives

120-494: A special dress), table linens, towels, bed linens, quilts and occasionally dishware. As a bride would typically leave home on marriage, hope chests were sometimes made with an eye to portability, albeit infrequently. Examples of hand-made items made between 1916 and 1918 for a trousseau by a prospective bride are on display in the National Museum of Australia . In this case, the trousseau— never used because its creator's fiancé

144-641: Is a flat-woven rug from Anatolia . Although the name kilim is sometimes used loosely in the West to include all type of rug such as cicim, palaz, soumak and zili, in fact any type other than pile carpets , the name kilim properly denotes a specific weaving technique. Cicim, palaz, soumak and zili are made using three groups of threads, namely longitudinal warps, crossing wefts, and wrapping coloured threads. The wrapping threads give these rugs additional thickness and strength. Kilim in contrast are woven flat, using only warp and weft threads. Kilim patterns are created by winding

168-410: Is no longer available, and owners are encouraged to permanently remove the latch and lock. The Lane Company of Altavista, Virginia (active 1912-2001) was a notable maker of cedar chests. After developing production-line techniques for making ammunition boxes during World War I, they turned these production techniques (and a patented locking-mitre corner joint) into vast numbers of chests. This

192-489: Is the Elibelinde (hands on hips): Anatolian symbol of the mother goddess , mother with child in womb, fertility , and abundance. Other motifs express the tribal weavers' desires for protection of their families' flocks from wolves with the wolf's mouth or the wolf's foot motif ( Turkish : Kurt Ağzı, Kurt İzi ), or for safety from the sting of the scorpion (Turkish: Akrep ). Several protective motifs, such as those for

216-536: Is used for love and unison (Turkish: Aşk ve Birleşim ). Among the motifs used late in life, the Tree of Life (Turkish: Hayat Ağacı ) symbolizes the desire for immortality. Many of the plants used to represent the Tree of Life can also be seen as symbols of fruitfulness, fertility, and abundance. Thus the pomegranate , a tree whose fruits carry many seeds, implies the desire for many children. Symbols are often combined, as when

240-574: Is used in the United States; in the United Kingdom, the term is "bottom drawer"; while both terms, and "glory box" are used by women in Australia. Today, some furniture makers refer to chests made to hold family heirlooms or general storage items as hope chests. A trousseau was a common coming-of-age rite until approximately the 1950s; it was typically a step on the road to marriage between courting

264-401: The dragon (Turkish: Ejder ), scorpion, and spider (sometimes called the crab or tortoise by carpet specialists) share the same basic diamond shape with a hooked or stepped boundary, often making them very difficult to distinguish. Several motifs hope for the safety of the weaver's family from the evil eye (Turkish: Nazarlık , also used as a motif), which could be divided into four with

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288-563: The evil eye . These motifs were often combined when woven into patterns on kilims. With the fading of tribal and village cultures in the 20th century, the meanings of kilim patterns have also faded. In these tribal societies, women wove kilims at different stages of their lives, choosing themes appropriate to their own circumstances. Some of the motifs used are widespread across Anatolia and sometimes across other regions of West Asia, but patterns vary between tribes and villages, and rugs often expressed personal and social meaning. A Turkish kilim

312-555: The crispness of their decoration. The motifs on kilims woven in this way are constrained to be somewhat angular and geometric. In tribal societies, kilim were woven by women at different stages of their lives: before marriage, in readiness for married life; while married, for her children; and finally, kilim for her own funeral, to be given to the mosque. Kilims thus had strong personal and social significance in tribal and village cultures, being made for personal and family use. Feelings of happiness or sorrow, hopes and fears were expressed in

336-517: The feminine elibelinde and the masculine ram's horn are each drawn twice, overlapping at the centre, forming a figure (some variants of the Bereket or fertility motif) of the sacred union of the principles of the sexes. All these motifs can vary considerably in appearance according to the weaver. Colours, sizes and shapes can all be chosen according to taste and the tradition in a given village or tribe; further, motifs are often combined, as illustrated in

360-553: The finished piece more aesthetic appeal. Motifs may commemorate events or convey information or political slogans. For example, the individual blocks of the AIDS Memorial Quilt , the possible Quilts of the Underground Railroad , and the " 54-40 or Fight " quilt block. This textile arts article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Trousseau chest The term "hope chest" or "cedar chest"

384-404: The lids of which latched shut automatically, and could not be opened from the inside. Specifically, the recall applied to the locks of all "Lane" and "Virginia Maid" cedar chests manufactured between 1912 and 1987. As part of the recall, they provide new lock latch configuration replacement parts. However, they estimated that 6 million chests still used the recalled lock latch. As of 2023 this recall

408-435: The photographs above. To give some idea of this variability, a few alternative forms are shown in the table. Motif (textile arts) In the textile arts , a motif (pronunciation) (also called a block or square ) is a smaller element in a much larger work. In knitting and crochet , motifs are made one at a time and joined together to create larger works such as afghan blankets or shawls. An example of

432-452: The resource literally. The desire to tie a family or lovers together could be depicted with a fetter motif (Turkish: Bukağı ). Similarly, a tombstone motif may indicate not simply death, but the desire to die rather than to part from the beloved. Several motifs represented the desire for good luck and happiness, as for instance the bird (Turkish: Kuş ) and the star or Solomon's seal (Turkish: Yıldız ). The oriental symbol of Yin/Yang

456-434: The village and tribal cultures that wove kilims, "the device in the rug has a materiality, it generates a field of force able to interact with other unseen forces and is not merely an intellectual abstraction." Other motifs symbolised fertility, as with the trousseau chest motif (Turkish: Sandıklı ), or the explicit fertility (Turkish: Bereket ) motif. The motif for running water (Turkish: Su Yolu ) similarly depicts

480-523: The weaving motifs. Many of these represent familiar household and personal objects, such as a hairband, a comb, an earring, a trousseau chest, a jug, a hook. The meanings expressed in kilims derive both from the individual motifs used, and by their pattern and arrangement in the rug as a whole. A few symbols are widespread across Anatolia as well as other regions including Persia and the Caucasus; others are confined to Anatolia. An especially widely used motif

504-411: The weft threads, which are coloured, backwards and forwards around pairs of warp threads, leaving the resulting weave completely flat. Kilim are therefore called flatweave or flatware rugs. To create a sharp pattern, weavers usually end each pattern element at a particular thread, winding the coloured weft threads back around the same warps, leaving a narrow gap or slit. These are prized by collectors for

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528-464: Was aided by strong advertising, using a teenage Shirley Temple as a model, in a campaign targeted at GIs and absentee sweethearts of World War II . They were particularly well known for their practice (since 1930) of distributing miniature (9" long) cedar chests to girls graduating from high-school (known as the Girl Graduate Plan) as advertising gifts. Decoration is not an intrinsic part of

552-459: Was killed in World War I before the marriage took place — was stored in calico bags rather than in a chest. The hope chest was often used for the firstborn girl of a family. Instead of just having sheets and household linen in the bottom drawer, this box would transport these goods and dowries and then later be used as a standard piece of furniture for the lady of the house to use. This dowry chest

576-442: Was often richly decorated, however over time dowry chests gradually became smaller, with jewelry boxes emerging instead of large dowry boxes. By contrast, a "bridal chest" was given to a bride at her wedding by her husband, and so is not a "hope chest" in this regard. and sometimes self-locking lid. In 1996, following reports of at least six child suffocation deaths, the manufacturer Lane Furniture recalled 12 million hope chests,

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