Multicolor Ethnic Handwoven Wool Kilim Cushion

Fifty centimeters square — 50 × 50 cm (1'8" × 1'8") — and flatwoven rather than knotted: a handwoven wool kilim cushion made in the Afghan villages where weaving has been the household trade for generations.

01The tone of the ground

Orange, green, purple, blue, cream and yellow run across the face in bands and stepped motifs. A single piece. Its drawing belongs to the ordinary vocabulary of Anatolian and Central Asian flatweave, stepped diamonds and hooked edges and narrow bands stacked one above another, and at this scale a single motif fills most of the square. The colors are set directly against one another with no ground between them, which is what gives a small kilim its noise.

02From ground to pile

On a dark chair the piece reads as one block of color; on pale linen the bands separate and the point where the weaver changed yarn becomes visible. Wool makes the face and cotton the foundation, worked in the kilim technique: no pile whatsoever, the weft beaten down across the warp until pattern and cloth are the same thing. That is why the piece is thin, and the thinness is the use — it lies on a seat without raising the cushion above the arms of the chair.

03Coming off the loom

At this size it is a cushion face and nothing more, so buy it as a cushion, a chair cover or a small cloth rather than as a floor piece. Handwoven in Afghanistan in the kilim technique, flat and without pile. Wool face over a cotton foundation. Orange, green, purple, blue, cream and yellow, in bands and stepped motifs. 50 × 50 cm (1'8" × 1'8"). Serves as a cushion, a decorative cover or a chair seat. Shake it out; anything beyond that belongs to a professional washer. One piece only. Flatweave gives out at the corners long before it gives out anywhere else, and the corners are where the first decade will show.