Multicolor Handwoven Wool Floor Cushion, Ethnic Pattern

Fifty centimeters square, a shade under 20 inches on a side, this is a handwoven wool floor cushion from the rug villages of Afghanistan. The face is wool throughout, worked in yellow, orange, blue, green, beige and cream over a cotton foundation.

01Comes from from Anatolia

It is light enough to carry from room to room and firm enough to sit on. The figures belong to the same drawing tradition as the region's kilims, Anatolian and Central Asian shapes set in narrow horizontal bands rather than arranged around a center.

02Knot by knot, by hand

A square this small leaves no room for a field and a border both, so the weaver ran the color changes straight across the face. From across the room it reads as stripes; up close the separate figures come apart again. Wool above, cotton below, and a little synthetic yarn runs through the foundation so the square keeps its shape. These are made by hand in village households between larger commissions, so the edges drift a millimeter here and there and a stack of them never sits square.

Anyone who wants a cushion with a machine-straight edge should look elsewhere. Send it to a specialist when it needs cleaning. Handwoven in the rug villages of Afghanistan. Wool face; cotton beneath, with a trace of synthetic yarn to stop it stretching. 50 × 50 cm, square. Yellow, orange, blue, green, beige and cream, banded across the width. Motifs drawn from Anatolian and Central Asian weaving. Serves as a floor cushion, a chair pad or a decorative cover. Professional washing. On a hard chair it takes the edge off the seat; on the floor beside a low table it becomes the place children sit, and nobody has to worry about it.