Khayamiya is the appliqué that lines the inside of a ceremonial tent — geometric, or calligraphic, or a copy of a wall relief, stitched panel by panel entirely by hand.
It survives on one covered street south of Bab Zuwayla and almost nowhere else. An afternoon is enough to understand why a panel takes a month, and to make something small and badly.
The street itself is part of the work. Radwan Bey built it around 1650 as a covered market, with shops at street level and rooms cantilevered above under a timber roof pierced by skylights. It is the only historic covered market street left in Cairo.
Most visitors walk this street and buy a cushion cover. This sits you beside the needle long enough to understand the price.
How it could run
A proposed shape, confirmed with you when it is arranged.
- Walk in through Bab Zuwayla to the covered street.
- Sit beside a maker and watch a panel grow: the shape cut, the edge turned under, the stitch.
- Stitch a small motif of your own on a practice square.
- Look through finished panels with the maker, and see the hours in them.
