Multicolor Patchwork Handwoven Wool Rug, Anadolu Şal Series

A wool rug woven by hand for the Anadolu Şal series, worked as patchwork — separate pieces set side by side, so the color changes at every seam rather than across a drawn pattern. It measures 123 × 209 cm (4'0" × 6'10"), a little over two and a half square meters, mixed in color throughout.

01Up close to the pattern

One piece, and no second one in this arrangement. Patchwork is a composition made of decisions rather than a single drawing. Each panel carries its own ground and its own motifs, and the panels are assembled so that they answer one another, which means the eye never settles and there is no center to find.

02Color, by the light

A rug like this makes the color decision for a room by itself. The most reliable way to live with it is to take one color out of it, repeat that color once in a cushion or a chair, and leave everything else quiet. Handwoven in wool, with nothing else in the yarn record. The word şal means shawl in Turkish, and the series is named for it; we leave series names in Turkish rather than translating them, because a translated name stops pointing at anything.

03Knot by knot, by hand

The house does not call this construction knotted, and neither will we — handwoven is the accurate word for it. On a pieced rug, water is the thing to be careful about: a wet cleaning at home can carry color across a seam into its neighbor, so blot spills dry and hand it to a rug washer for the rest. Handwoven in wool; no other fiber in the record. Patchwork construction — panels joined at seams, each with its own ground. No center and no dominant motif, so the rug reads the same from any side. 123 × 209 cm (4'0" × 6'10"), around 2.6 square meters. Color can migrate across a seam if the rug is cleaned wet at home. Blot spills dry; professional washing for anything more. A single piece; no two patchworks come out the same. Pieced rugs age unevenly by design, and in twenty years the seams will be what you notice first.