Multicolor Sivas Zara Handwoven Wool Rug, Anadolu Şal Series

A piece this small took months to weave. It is a handwoven wool rug of 81 × 129 cm (2'8" × 4'3") in the Sivas Zara pattern, part of Halıcızade's Anadolu Şal series, made entirely in Anatolia in blue, orange, red, green and yellow.

01Reading the motif

Zara, in central Anatolia, is a Sivas district whose weaving carries drawing of its own. The palette is loud on purpose and the pattern is dense — five colors, none of them held back, worked into the traditional Anatolian motifs the series is named for.

02From the hand of the weaver

Şal means shawl, and this drawing belonged to woven shawls before it ever went onto a floor. At this scale the whole design can be taken in at once, which is rare; the same pattern on a large rug has to be read in sections, one part at a time. The yarn is first-grade wool, spun and knotted by women working by hand over months, for a rug a grown person can carry under one arm. That ratio is the point of the piece.

03The Wool on the surface

The wool has a soft hand and a faint sheen close to silk, and both come from the grade of the fleece rather than from any finishing treatment. Fewer of these are made each year. It should be washed professionally, and being small enough to carry, most people will do exactly that rather than risk it. Handwoven in Anatolia, wholly by hand, over several months. First-grade wool yarn, soft in the hand and faintly lustrous. Woven by women artisans, as the whole Anadolu Şal series is. Blue, orange, red, green and yellow, in traditional Anatolian motifs. Şal means shawl: the drawing came from woven shawls before it came to rugs. 81 × 129 cm (2'8" × 4'3") — a bedside, a reading chair, a small entrance. Fewer pieces of this kind leave Anatolian looms every year. Professional washing. It is a small rug that behaves like a large one, and in a plain room it will be the only thing anybody asks about.