Handwoven Kilim, Studio Potato Flow

It was woven by women working at home across Türkiye, on their own looms, to a design drawn for this series alone: Flow is a handwoven kilim, root-dyed, and no two pieces come off the loom alike. The one that arrives will differ from the one photographed. That last sentence is a warning in most catalogs and a description here. A kilim woven to a single design by many hands in many places absorbs the hand of each weaver — tension changes, dye lots change, a motif lands a centimeter to one side — and the piece you receive carries whichever of those it happened to get.

01Coming off the loom

Root dyeing widens the variation further, because a plant dye is a harvest rather than a formula and no two baths match exactly. Flat-woven, so there is no pile at all: the whole thickness of the piece is the weave itself, which makes it light, easy to lift, and thin enough to lie under a door a knotted rug would not clear. The other side of that is the absence of cushioning. A kilim is a covering rather than a padding, and on a hard floor it remains a hard floor.

02From the hand of the weaver

Professional washing. Handwoven on the loom in Türkiye, to a design made for this series. Woven by artisan women working in their own homes across the country. Root-dyed, which is why the color varies from one piece to the next. Every piece differs from the photograph, and from every other piece. Flat-woven with no pile — thin enough to clear a door. No cushioning underfoot; it covers a floor rather than softening one. Professional washing. Buying one means accepting that you cannot see it before it arrives, which is the oldest condition in the rug trade.