The Kiwi, the Knight and the Qashqai

I sometimes think you know that those of us who live in towns and surrounded by the mechanically made things have a romantic vision of what it is to do hand-crafted things like rugs. And the modern world offers a woman more things than just sitting cross-legged tying knots.

– David Attenborough on the misconceptions surrounding nomadic Qashqai life

Qashqai rugs are now rare, but modern Persian carpets are big business. Hamid Zollanvari has a huge factory in Shiraz sending out wools and designs to weavers all over Iran.

– Rug repairer Anna Williams on modern rug weaving in Iran

Because there is nothing left for them. If they go to a plantation and pick tomatoes, pick potatoes, they get paid more compared to weaving rugs.

– Rug repairer and seller Rasoul Kholghi explains why rug weaving is declining among the Qashqai

A finely made carpet may have 300, even 400 knots in a square inch; say, a quarter of a million in a carpet six feet long. And each of them is individually tied. The process of knotting is so lengthy that it may take two or three Qashqai women as much as five or six years to make a relatively small rug...

– David Attenborough on Qashqai rug weaving in his 1975 documentary Woven Gardens

What's changing for the Qashqai now is that they're not weaving their rugs anymore. Every time I've come here there's been less and less happening.

– Rug repairer Anna Williams on the disappearing rug weaving practice of the Qashqai people in Iran

Anna is absolutely unique in the carpet business because most people in this business simply see the carpets as a commodity. Anna, she doesn't separate the oriental carpet out from the culture and the tradition and the light of the people who made them.

– Carpet collector and dealer Richard Pointon describes Anna Williams

I'm putting my work and love and time into something that other people have already worked on, and I feel this amazing connection with the people that made the rug . . .

– Rug repairer Anna Williams

...I found rug repairs when I was in my early 40s. I had to find a way to support myself, and then one day I saw an advertisement in a paper where this man called Selo was saying 'mature woman wanted to work at oriental rug shop'. So I rang him up.

– Anna Williams on how she got started in the rug business

Anna is an absolutely remarkable woman . . . They call her a master and that is amazing for a woman. For a woman to be sitting with the men, cross-legged, repairing rugs is something.

– Director Anna Cottrell on Anna Williams working in a traditionally male domain in Iran, The Dominion Post, November 2018

I love coming down into my workroom, getting lost and choosing colours, and reconstructing pile that's worn away — time just disappears.

– Rug repairer Anna Williams, at the start of this documentary