Showing posts with label Moroccan Wedding Blankets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moroccan Wedding Blankets. Show all posts

Saturday, 21 April 2018

Moroccan Wedding Blanket Moods


Check our website www.beyondmarrakech.com for a wedding blanket selection. We have more than 200 blankets in our collection. If you can not find your dream blanket on our website please contact us and we will be happy to search our offline collection. 






Wednesday, 7 March 2012

A Thousand Sparkles


This is a tale of patience. A tale of incredible beauty. A story of marriage and the hopes and dreams of a young woman who will forever remain anonymous. It is a story of an old Berber tradition but still very much alive. A tale about being pretty and protected against the evil eye. A story about blessings.

The tale continues in an old truck on the small and very bumpy road between a petite village in the Middle Atlas Mountains to the hustle and bustle of Marrakech. In the story the truck finally arrives at its destination behind the ancient red walls of the city near the souks of the Jemaa El Fna square. There is a cart puller in this story, pulling a cart load full of ivory white blankets, all of them folded and embracing tightly their inner secrets.

The story is missing a few details, but it is unmistakably clear about the moment when a particular blanket caught my blissful eye. A story about searching and gratefully finding. It is a tale of a thousand sparkles, each and every one hand sewn onto the loomed wool. This is a tale about one of the most beautiful Moroccan wedding blankets I have ever seen!

H326 Absolutely stunning Moroccan wedding blanket!

The amount of work, the patience and the beautiful result!

More tales of patience and beauty in the Handira Boutique
Oh, and a new stock of vintage Handira pillow cases have arrived too!

Friday, 3 February 2012

Moroccan Wedding Blankets, New Arrivals



New Moroccan wedding blankets have arrived in the Handira Boutique. Below a selection, please click here to view details and more stock.

H281 Pieces like this Handira are nowadays hard to find! 

H281 Beautiful on the outside with an unexpected surprise at the back!

H283 Great size, will completely cover a King size bed!

H274 Another very lucky find! Gorgeous Handira and wait until you see the backside....

H274 Wow!

H284 Traditional Handira.

H276  A bed of flowers!

H273 Lovely colors!

H285 Great sparkler!

Handira Boutique

Thursday, 1 December 2011

Vintage Handira Pillow Cases, The Instant WOW Effect!


Please click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to view the newly arrived vintage Handira pillow cases.

Monday, 28 November 2011

Moroccan Wedding Blanket, A Sparkling Christmas Gift

Just before the roads of the Middle Atlas Mountains closed due to the heavy snowfall some beautiful vintage Moroccan wedding blankets came my way. They will be the last new arrivals before Christmas because the rural Berber villages in the mountains are now unreachable. 

Look at these amazing blankets! They are truly vintage, some of them quiet old and all of them in good condition. Wouldn’t a Moroccan wedding blanket make a wonderful sparkling Christmas gift?


H247 Absolutely stunning! One of kind and so hard to find this beautiful vintage Moroccan wedding blanket! So many sparkly sequins! This blanket sings and jingles when lifted.

H250 So soft and fluffy this lovely Moroccan wedding blanket!

H254 Very beautiful and heavy Morccan wedding blanket which still has the shoulder straps.

H258 Prefer a snowy white blanket with a touch of color? Look at this beauty and the very pretty sequined patterns!

H245 My current favorite! Nice and large and wonderfully luscious and shaggy! 

H253 Such a sweety! This Moroccan wedding blanket has it all! Sparkles, patterned bands and the shoulder straps still attached.

H255 Gorgeous older vintage Moroccan wedding blanket! Lots of  sparks and  jingle!

To see more Moroccan wedding blankets please click here. For more details please drop me a line danielledonker@gmail.com.

Sunday, 9 October 2011

Moroccan Wedding Blankets, A Vanishing Tradition





The first thing I learned while researching the tradition of the Moroccan wedding blanket in the Middle Atlas region of Morocco, was that the Berbers in the rural villages do not understand the Arabic word ‘Handira’. In the Berber language the Moroccan wedding blanket is called ‘Tamizart’. The second thing I discovered was that until a few years ago these beautiful and much sought after blankets were unknown beyond Morocco and thus worthless.

Nowadays it’s a whole different thing. Internationally the typical white/cream Handira has become immensely popular as an ethnic home décor attribute and the small rural villages in the region of the Ait Sdik tribe have been skimmed to supply the enormous demand for the vintage wedding blankets. Except for being hard to find, the real vintage blankets now cost a small fortune!

A Vintage Handira used as decoration at the foot of a bed

A Handira or Tamizart is a throw used for warmth and special events. The white/cream coloured Handira is woven for weddings, often decorated with countless metal sequins (mouzouns in Arabic). I’ve been told that a mother begins to weave a wedding blanket when her daughter is still very young. The girl grows up getting familiar with her wedding blanket as part of her dowry and her duties as a married woman. 

Moroccan wedding blankets are woven in natural undyed wool and cotton, often decorated with woven pattern bands of very pretty and colourful talismanic symbols. The numerous sequins give the Handira the finishing touch but are not solemnly esthetical. They are considered to ware of the evil eye and to protect. They also reflect the sun light during the day and the glow of fire at night.

Example of a colourful woven pattern band


A bride wears her Tamizart as part of her dowry when she is carried to the house of the groom. According to old tradition it is highly unusual that the bride walks, she is carried on the back of a mule to her new home. During this journey a small procession of family and friends of the bride sing about her dowry and the gifts that she brings for her new family.

Traditional slippers for a bride


Although woven textiles were once valuable family possessions and conserved with pride, many women are now selling their wedding blanket. Sadly it is a vanishing tradition but due to its popularity as a trendy home accessory, women are still making them to sell at the local markets.


Women wearing Tamizart

Looking for a Moroccan wedding blanket? Please click here  to see my collection of vintage Handiras for sale.

Monday, 19 September 2011

Discovering Myths And Truths Of Berber Culture

Some of you may be wondering about the long silence on our blog. I haven't posted for a while and neither have I published some of the beautiful new arrivals on the Handira Boutique yet. We've been travelling in the Middle Atlas Mountain region of Moroccan visiting rural Berber villages and gathering information about some of the traditions such as the Moroccan wedding blanket.

This year we've taken the time to visit the annual Imilchil wedding festival on which I will post in the very near future. We've spoken with many people at local village markets and the hospitality of the Berber people and their readiness to share knowledge of their culture and old traditions has been amazing!

We still have a few places to visit before we return to the Valley of Ourika but already this journey of discovery has proven valuable and highly interesting. Not only did we hand pick some very lovely Handiras from the source, we also learned about the myths and truths of some of the ancient Berber traditions.


Young women with colorful new design Handiras at the Imilchil annual moussem

For my collection of Moroccan wedding blankets please click here.

Wednesday, 3 August 2011

Moroccan Wedding Blanket, New Arrivals


Zohra and I have become partners in crime when it comes to twirling the souk of Marrakech in search of beautiful Moroccan wedding blankets! She loves the metal sequins and the jingling sound that they make.



Returning home with a few lucky finds! With the rising popularity of the vintage Handira it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find blankets which are in good condition.

Some of the damaged or stained vintage Moroccan wedding blankets are still very beautiful which has inspired me to make pillow cases from the sound parts of the blankets. The pillow cases come in different sizes and I try to make them in pairs. For easy use they each have a zipper. Available pillow cases will soon be displayed here.



Last but definitely not least, I found another gorgeous vintage Beni Ouarain Handira. The quality is exquisite and its condition is excellent! Please check out the Handira Boutique for more details and lots more new arrivals!











Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Handira Wedding Blankets And Beni Ouarain Carpets

Well into July and with the blazing sun you’d think that the last thing on my mind would be woollen blankets and carpets, but you’re oh so wrong! Despite the heat I continue to shimmy the Marrakech souk in my endless search for the most beautiful blankets in the world and I am pretty often rewarded for my efforts with gorgeous Handira’s that sometimes sing to me from afar. If you are looking to buy a Handira please see my collection of stunning blankets for wholesale prices here.

My great appreciation for Berber art by women is slowly turning into a passionate research only limited by the time I have available whilst completing our guesthouse Dar Zohra. In search of the typical better known white Handira of the Middle Atlas I came across the exquisite Beni Ouarain Handira’s with their complex patterns and loose loops of wool on the inside of the Handira.



Better known are the Beni Ouarain carpets which have become objects of desire in households worldwide. The Beni Ouarain are a confederation of several nomadic Berber tribes of the Middle Atlas with nomadic background. Their pile weaving tradition dates back as far as a thousand years and originally served as protection against the cold during the winter. Click here for my Beni Ouarain collection for wholesale prices.



In the near future I’ll be posting more about the region and tribes of the Beni Ouarain. I’ll be exploring the Middle Atlas researching the slowly vanishing traditions of the Berber women and Inshallah purchasing some fine carpets and Handira’s from the source!

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Vintage Moroccan Wedding Blankets


A pile of Handira's, new purchases!





This vintage Handira is gorgeous and spotless! It has a simple design which definitely gives it a sweet charisma. There are numerous metal sequins for a wonderful sparkle and jingle.



This lovely vintage Handira represents the Berber style, simplicity with rich decoration. It has many rows of embroidery with lots of metal sequins. A lot of love and work has gone into this one!


If you like one of these Handira's or if you are looking for a specific design and would like some help finding the Moroccan wedding blanket of your desire, please contact me: beyondmarrakech@gmail.com

Check out the Handira's that I have in stock in the Handira Boutique