Red Rose-Pattern Hand-Knotted Wool Kırşehir Pillow

The rose is the point. Kırşehir weaving in central Anatolia is known for a rose figure, drawn in knots and therefore squared off at every curve, and this piece carries it in red on a wool pile over a cotton foundation.

01How many centimeters, which room

It measures 56 × 110 cm (1'10" × 3'7") and is made up as a pillow face. One only. A knotted rose is a strange object to look at closely. Nothing about the flower is round — the petals arrive as small stepped blocks, the stem is a stack of three or four knots, and the eye assembles the rest.

02Knot by knot, by hand

Kırşehir weavers have been drawing it that way for generations, in reds against darker reds with a little cream to give the edges somewhere to end. At this size the figures are large in proportion to the piece, so the pattern reads as one flower rather than a field of them. The surface is wool; underneath, the warp and weft are cotton. A Türkiye piece, tied knot by knot. The oblong shape is the giveaway that this began as rug weaving rather than as a cushion: at 56 by 110 cm it is a rug proportion, not a cushion proportion, and it has been finished as a pillow face afterward.

03The mark of slow weaving

A wool pile makes a firm cushion rather than a soft one, and it wants a backing cloth behind it if the insert is going to be used rather than looked at. Hand-knotted in wool in the Kırşehir manner, central Türkiye. Wool pile knotted over a cotton warp and weft. The Kırşehir rose, stepped rather than curved, in red with cream edging. 56 × 110 cm (1'10" × 3'7") — a long bolster shape, not a square cushion. Cut and finished from village rug weaving, which is why the proportion is oblong. Knotted pile gives a firm cushion; a fabric backing protects the weave. Professional washing; do not put it through a household machine. A single face, and no second one to match it. Set against plain linen it does the work a small painting would do, at a fraction of the wall.