Multicolor Geometric Handwoven Wool Tulu Rug, Studio Potato Block Party

Tulu is an Anatolian weaving with a long, loosely set pile, and the technique is what makes Block Party what it is: a handwoven wool rug whose surface stands at several different heights, so the geometry shifts as you cross it.

01A line from the archive

Multicolor, woven in Türkiye, made in six sizes from 80 × 140 cm (2'7" × 4'7") up to 250 × 340 cm (8'2" × 11'2"). The palette was taken from summer and it shows: blocks of color set against one another in a geometric layout, with no border holding them in.

02After the color

Because the pile rises and falls, one block reads as two tones depending on which way the light falls, and the arrangement looks looser from a doorway than it does from directly above. Tulu weaving has been worked in Anatolia for a very long time, and what it has always been good at is exactly this — texture doing the job that drawing does elsewhere. Handwoven in wool at the loom by the women Studio Potato commissions across Türkiye, in the tulu technique rather than as a flat kilim.

03What it sits well with

A long pile of this kind is warm to sit on and slow to vacuum; crumbs go down into it and stay there, which makes it a poor choice for a kitchen or a dining floor and a very good one for a bedroom.

04At the loom in in Anatolia

Each piece is woven individually, so no two come out matching. Cleaning is a job for a professional, and the pile does not respond well to being scrubbed. Handwoven in wool in Türkiye by the tulu technique, at several pile heights. Geometric blocks of summer color, laid out without a border. Six sizes, 80 × 140 cm (2'7" × 4'7") through 250 × 340 cm (8'2" × 11'2"). The surface changes tone with the light because the pile is uneven by design. Long pile: warm underfoot, and a trap for crumbs — not one for a dining floor. Woven piece by piece, so no two are identical. Professional cleaning; do not scrub the pile. What is a tulu rug? Tulu is a traditional Anatolian weaving with a long, loosely knotted pile, worked in wool and valued for its texture rather than for fine drawing.

05When you touch it

The pile is set at varying heights, which is what gives a tulu its shaggy, layered surface and its warmth underfoot. How does a tulu differ from a flat kilim? A kilim has no pile at all and is usable on both faces; a tulu carries a long pile on one face only.

06The mark of slow weaving

Block Party uses the tulu technique, so its geometric blocks are built out of depth and shadow rather than out of flat color, and the surface reads differently from every angle. It ends up being the piece people sit on rather than walk across, which is what a long pile is for in the first place.