Cicim Handwoven Wool Village Kilim, Anatolian Pattern

Wool and only wool — warp, weft and the brocading threads on top of them. A village cicim kilim handwoven in Türkiye, 159 × 255 cm (5'3" × 8'4"), multicolored, worked in Anatolian motifs, and old enough to sit in the house's rare stock.

01The mark of slow weaving

One piece. Working a single fiber through every part of a weaving is a village decision rather than a workshop one. It means the whole piece expands and contracts together with the seasons instead of the warp pulling against a different material, and it means the object ages evenly.

02A question of size

What it costs is dimensional discipline: this kilim will never measure exactly the same twice, and the number on the label is a fair average rather than a guarantee. Anyone ordering furniture to fit it should measure the piece in front of them. The motifs are laid in with supplementary threads over the ground weave — the cicim method — so the drawing has a small physical height to it, and on a wool ground that raised thread takes and returns light differently from the flat surface around it.

03Choosing the size

On four square meters that gives the surface a quiet movement that no photograph carries. Where a foot lands repeatedly the brocading flattens before the ground does, so keep it out of the main line of traffic.

04At the loom in in Anatolia

Send it to a kilim washer once and then leave it alone. Handwoven in Türkiye in a village workshop, wool in warp, weft and brocading alike. Cicim: motifs laid over the flatweave with supplementary threads, standing slightly proud. 159 × 255 cm (5'3" × 8'4"), close to four square meters. All-wool construction moves as one; the measurements shift slightly with humidity. Anatolian motif families in several dyes at once. Brocading flattens under repeated footfall before the ground does. Washing by a kilim washer, and rarely. One of one. A single fiber throughout is the oldest way to build a textile, and it remains the only one that ages at a single rate.