Multicolor Mut Handwoven Wool Cicim Kilim

The wool in this one went into a piece barely two-thirds of a square meter: a handwoven Mut cicim kilim, 61 × 110 cm (2'0" × 3'7"), multicolored, made in Türkiye. Run a hand across it and the motifs are findable with your eyes shut — that is what cicim is, and why the technique has a name of its own. Mut sits inland from Mersin, in country where weaving was a household activity rather than a trade, and pieces this size came out of it constantly: covers for a chest, faces for a cushion, mats for a doorway.

01Knot by knot, by hand

The multicolored drawing is the one that would appear on a full floor kilim, reduced to whatever fits in 61 centimeters of width, which usually means two or three columns of motif and no border at all. Handwoven in wool, with the cicim threads carried over the ground weave as the piece was made. On a small kilim the finishing at the two ends is more than a detail — it is what holds the weaving shut, and once it loosens a small piece begins to undo itself from the end inward.

Handle it by the body, not the ends. Clean it professionally, and rarely. Handwoven in wool in Mut, inland from Mersin. Cicim technique — motifs raised above a plain flat ground. Multicolored, with the drawing reduced to what 61 cm of width allows. 61 × 110 cm (2'0" × 3'7") — a doorway, a chest top, or a cushion face. No border; the composition is columns of motif rather than a framed field. The end finishing holds a small weaving together — carry it by the body. Cleaned professionally, and not often. Single piece. Small weavings are the ones that survive, because nobody ever put a table on them.