My local quilter

I've been trying to catch my local quilter when he was open and when there was a parking slot, for a while - like 4 years.... I finally managed it. Aydogan is from the black sea area, but has been making quilts for 45 years, he had a shop in the covered bazaar but moved out of there. Turkish quilts are whole cloth, quite thick, backed with cotton, filled with either wool or cotton. The top layer is usually satin, silk is his preferred fabric, though cotton satin is good. He doesn't like to use either polyester filling or polyester satin, but the customer is king bringing these fabrics to him. He usually supplies the filling.
These quilts are re-made from time to time, washing them makes them lumpy. So you take them to the quilter, open them up, wash the layers separately and he re-stitches them.
The technique is different to 'American quilting' he makes a 'bag' of the two layers, open at one end. He then fills it with the 'stuffing' which then gets whacked with a bamboo stick till it is even and compressed. He then sews the 3 layers together. The stitches are large, the thread thick and the needle huge. He 'draws' the patterns using bamboo sticks again which he stitches along. then infills them building up the design. The low level stage is where all this happens.
This chap was very friendly, I went in with T1 who asked a gazillion questions - he answered each one with grace and care saying that the only way for children to learn is to be told the correct answer. He had a huge folder of 'show' quilts that he'd done for exhibitions and the like, quite stunning stuff. the ones hanging here were waiting for their owners to come and collect them. Each one took a day to do.