Multicolor Patchwork Handwoven Wool Rug, Anadolu Şal Series

Hereke, Bünyan, Ladik, Isparta: four Anatolian weaving towns, each with drawing of its own, and all four are on this rug. Anadolu Şal Series Multicolor Patchwork Handwoven Wool Rug, 242 × 295 cm (7'11" × 9'8"), woven by hand in Anatolia in green, orange, burgundy and purple.

The patches do not match and were never meant to. Green sits next to orange, burgundy next to purple, and the join between one traditional pattern and the next is left visible rather than smoothed over — a rug assembled out of a country's pattern memory instead of a single workshop's. Laid in a plain room it changes the room entirely. Laid in one that already carries color, it will need everything else to give way to it.

These are woven by women in Anatolia, and one of this area runs to months of work. The yarn is first-grade wool close to textile grade, which is why the pile is soft and has a shine that came with the fleece rather than out of a finishing bath. Fewer people weave this way every year — a condition of the trade, and not an argument for hurrying. It should go to a wash house, not into a machine.

• Woven entirely by hand in Anatolia, by women, over a period of months.
• Yarn of first-grade wool, close to textile grade.
• 242 × 295 cm (7'11" × 9'8") — a large sitting room or a dining floor.
• Motifs drawn from Hereke, Bünyan, Ladik and Isparta.
• Green, orange, burgundy and purple, patched rather than blended.
• The shine in the wool is the fleece's own, not a finish.
• Best against plain walls and simple furniture.
• One rug. Professional washing.

Four towns that never wove together are on one floor here, and it is the disagreements between them that make it worth looking at.