"Return to Tradition" by June Anderson

The Author: June Anderson is an anthropologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
Born and raised in England June Anderson moved to the USA in 1977 to pursue graduate studies in folklore and anthropology at the University of California in  Berkeley. She has been a staff member of the Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences since 1983. Specializing in urban ethnography, she conducts research and fieldwork within ethnic communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily documenting folk art traditions.

Contents include many facets of carpet weaving:  revitalization of natural dye making, establishment of a true weaver's cooperative, making a rug, aesthetics, symbolism of motifs, village life, etc. It's more than a book on Turkish village rugs. It also reveals the culture and  lifestyles of the women that weave them. It's unique.

Excerpts from the book: "Though much has been written on antique  carpets and their history, we lack literature on contemporary carpet-weaving in modern-day Anatolia  the Asiatic part of Turkey.
....In villages today, very little has changed in the technology of  carpet-weaving since its early beginnings; women still use the drop spindle for spinning, and weave on the same type of loom as their ancestors did. Villagers shear the sheep, card the wool, and dye the skeins much as their forebears diid in ancient times. These traditional folkways have survived to this day, an unbroken link with the past. This book focuses on only one small part of that cultural legacy woolen pile carpets hand-notted by village women in the Aegean region of western Turkey. Our story concerns a carpet weaving project called DOBAGÖ"