Cream Striped Handwoven Wool Kilim

A kilim is flat: no pile, no knots, the pattern made by the weft alone as it passes over and under the warp. This one is handwoven in India in cream wool on a cotton warp, with narrow gray stripes running the width, in three sizes, the middle one measuring 160 × 230 cm (5'3" × 7'7"). Stripes are thin and irregularly spaced, so the surface reads as a rhythm rather than a grid, and from a standing height the gray reads as shadow.

It is one of the pieces the people who work here keep for their own houses, which is a recommendation of a particular kind — the ones that go home are almost never the elaborate ones. Cream and gray means it will sit under almost anything, and its real advantage over a pile rug is that there is so little of it: at a few millimeters it slides under a door, under a low sofa, or on top of another rug without anything being lifted. Handweaving a flatweave is slower than it looks, because there is nowhere for a mistake to hide — a knotted pile buries small errors and a kilim displays them.

01What the yarn is

Wool weft on cotton warp, worked on hand looms. It sheds very little, being flat, and it can be turned over: a kilim wears on both faces, and turning it once a year doubles the time before the stripes go soft. Handwoven on hand looms in India — a flatweave, with no pile and no knots. Wool weft on a cotton warp. Cream ground with narrow, irregularly spaced gray stripes. A few millimeters thick: it clears a door and layers over a larger rug. Reversible — turn it once a year and it wears evenly on both faces. Three sizes: 120 × 180, 160 × 230 and 200 × 300 cm. It should be washed by someone who washes rugs for a living. Flatweaves get softer and more supple with use, and a kilim that has been walked on for ten years lies better than a new one ever does.