Easter Sunday I awoke to Tehran traffic outside my hotel window. Some wrestled the tangle of cars and pedestrians on their way to mass at the nearby Orthodox Church. I prepared for my own spiritual journey, the reason I had traveled through eleven time zones and half way around the world: to weave a knot on Iran’s World Peace Carpet, a project sponsored by UNESCO and the Cultural Heritage,Tourism and Handicraft Organization of Iran. For a tapestry weaver and author (my first novel was inspired by an Afshar tribal rug), tying a goodwill knot on this carpet, along with 700 others from 89 nations, seemed every bit as reverent as attending Easter Mass...

Weaving Peace in Tehran Click here to read the rest of this essay about my journey to Iran in spring 2009 to weave on their first World Peace Carpet.  

KYRS radio Persian Hour Click here to listen to an interview about this experience (Coming soon).

Author Meghan Nutttall Sayres seated at the World Peace Carpet beside Head Weaver Jafar Shahabi and Museum Curator Fahimeh Naderinajad in the Saad Abad Historical Complex, Tehran, Iran.

UNESCO banner celebrating the carpet of universal peace.

Practicing knots before making one on the Peace Carpet. The silk warp threads were strung so closely together that it took a needle-like crochet hook to work the threads apart.

Signing the Peace Carpet guest book with Fahimeh Naderinajad. The comments will be published into a book and presented to the United Nations with the completed carpet.

Jafar Shahabi hung wool from my sheep on his loom and plans to weave it into the Peace Carpet.

Sharing my tapestry Weaving Basra with a Peace Carpet official.

My friend Manda Jahan and I enjoyed tea with the director of the Saad Abad Historical Complex, Ms. Eshrat Shayegh, a former parliamentarian.

Follow the Peace Carpet’s progress on my Blog!

Link to Iranian National Carpet Center

Amir Haeri Mehrizi, my translator and guide (top left) weaving on the Peace Carpet. My friend Manda Jahan seated beside Abbas Sayahi at the Peace Carpet loom.

Flags representing the nationalities of the people who have come to weave on the Peace Carpet. I was the first American to weave on this rug, but 700 people from 89 nations had come before me.