Multicolor Anatolian Handwoven İnlice Konya Kilim

A meter thirty-nine by a meter eighty-five is the size of a village kilim woven to suit a room rather than a doorway: 139 × 185 cm (4'7" × 6'1"), handwoven at İnlice in Konya province, multicolored, with wool wefts carried over a cotton warp.

01Knot by knot, by hand

One weaving, and no companion to it. İnlice motifs are angular because a flatweave cannot draw a curve — every diagonal becomes a staircase of small steps and every rounded form has to be approximated.

02A line from the archive

What that yields is hooked lozenges and stepped medallions in colors set hard against one another, with a narrow border doing very little beyond stopping the field. Nothing is blended, nothing is shaded, and every shape ends where the next begins. Cotton warp, wool weft.

03How it feels underfoot

The cotton is the structural half, taking the tension on the loom and keeping 185 centimeters of length from drawing in, while every color you can see is wool. Mixing the two was a village habit rather than a compromise, since cotton was bought and wool was already to hand. The result is firmer than an all-wool kilim and a little heavier.

04A question of size

It is thin enough to slide, so put grip under it on tile or board. Handwoven at İnlice, a village in Konya province, central Türkiye. Wool weft over a cotton warp: cotton for structure, wool for color. 139 × 185 cm (4'7" × 6'1"), around two and a half square meters. Stepped, angular Anatolian motifs with a narrow border. Firmer and heavier in the hand than an all-wool kilim of the same size. Thin enough to move on a hard floor; use grip beneath it. Professional washing. One piece. Two and a half square meters is the size somebody weaves when they already know the room it is going into.