After careers as a cost control manager, restaurateur, and wine merchant, in 1991, Musa started weaving kilims and designing his own patterns. He usually weaves at night for 2-3 hours everyday. The weaving sometimes serves as therapy for him. He said that at night when he weaves, "It is just my kilim, my thoughts in my head and my God." Some of the kilims he weaves take ten days and others two months. He learned the classical design patterns first and later created his own designs. All of his kilims are his favorites, but especially the multi-picture kilim.

Musa dyes the wool and silk himself in his studio in Istanbul. The materials he uses are all natural: the silk he uses comes from Brazil and the dyes come from South and Central America. The studio is spread out between the main floor for weaving, the basement where the natural dye materials are kept and a rooftop terrace for drying. The top floor balcony overlooks the Sea of Marmara. He does not make all of the kilims himself in his studio. The wool he dyes is sent to a small village in Manisia, which is about 150 kilometers from Izmir, in southwestern Turkey, to be made into kilims by weavers there.

(Excerpted from an article by Dr. Marlene Breu, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.)