White Striped Handwoven Wool Kilim

The green is the part most people miss. White Striped Handwoven Wool Kilim — wool worked over a cotton ground, flat-woven in India, with fine green lines set into a white field at intervals wide enough that you notice them only once you are standing on the rug.

01How many centimeters, which room

Made in three size bands. There is no pile on a kilim at all. The cloth carries the drawing by itself, weft packed down hard over warp until the weave turns solid. That is why this one lies so flat and weighs so little, and why the green lines look drawn rather than knotted.

02From ground to pile

White here is not bright white but the color wool goes when it is left largely alone, which is what stops the rug reading as a bathmat. Move it seasonally and it works in a bedroom in summer and under a coffee table the rest of the year. Wool on the surface, cotton in the ground, and a great deal of hand labor between the two.

03Coming off the loom

The thinness that makes it easy to lift is also its limitation: a flatweave gives you no cushioning at all, and on a hard floor you feel the floor. Under a dining table or in a hallway with a door swinging over it, that thinness is exactly the point. Have it washed by someone who cleans rugs for a living. Handwoven as a flatweave in India, in wool over a cotton ground. White field with fine green lines placed at wide intervals. No pile: the weave itself carries the pattern, front and back. Thin and light enough to lift, roll and move on your own. Offers no cushioning underfoot, which is the trade for its flatness. Three size bands, from an entrance piece to a sitting-room size. Cleaning should go to a rug washer, not a machine. It is the rug people buy when they want the floor to stay quiet and still want something on it.