Multicolor Patchwork Handwoven Wool Runner, Anadolu Şal Series

Patchwork, in a rug, means panels of separate weavings cut square and joined into one field, so a single piece carries several patterns at once. These two are handwoven wool from the Anadolu Şal series, made in Türkiye, and both are narrow: 60 × 178 cm (2'0" × 5'10") and 65 × 172 cm (2'2" × 5'8"), one of each. Şal is the Turkish word for shawl, and this series is named for the drawing rather than for any garment — the shawl families of Anatolia are dense, small-scale and multicolored, and that is what a patchwork wants, because a large motif cut into panels loses its sense.

01The tone of the ground

Here the color is the composition. No two panels agree, and the seams between them are the only straight lines on the rug. At sixty centimeters wide neither of these will ever sit under furniture, which is the correct use of a runner: it is a rug to walk down, and a corridor is where the changes of color read one after another as you go. Handwoven in wool, in Türkiye.

02From ground to pile

Wool is the right fiber for a joined piece because it takes a needle without splitting and because the panels can be pulled together tightly enough that the seam sits flat. The honest limitation is the seam itself.

03Reading the motif

A patchwork has joins, and joins are where a rug wears first and where a vacuum head can catch, so take it gently along the lines. Each of these is a single piece with its own arrangement of panels, and no second one exists in the same order.

04From the hand of the weaver

Professional washing, and never a machine. Handwoven in Türkiye, wool throughout. Panels of separate weavings joined into one field — no two panels alike. 60 × 178 cm (2'0" × 5'10") and 65 × 172 cm (2'2" × 5'8"), one of each. Runner proportions, for a corridor, a landing, or beside a bed. Anadolu Şal takes its name from the small-scale shawl drawing of Anatolia. The seams are the wear points; vacuum along them, not across. Professional washing only. Each piece is one of one. Walking a corridor with one of these down it means passing through four or five different weavings in twelve steps.