Yellow Anatolian Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, Mihman Series

Mihman Series yellow Anatolian rug, hand-knotted in wool: yellow through the field with brown, blue and green in the figures, 152 × 194 cm (5'0" × 6'4"), a wool surface over a cotton foundation, knotted entirely by hand in Afghanistan and Pakistan at roughly two thousand knots to every ten square centimeters.

01Color that shifts through the day

A single rug rather than a run. Four colors share the field and none of them takes over. Yellow sets the temperature, brown grounds it, and blue and green appear in the smaller figures, where they keep the warm tones from running together.

02Reading the motif

The vocabulary is Anatolian and it is packed close enough that the motifs keep their edges instead of blurring. Density is what buys that, and it is the first thing to look for in a rug of this kind, before any question of pattern comes up. Weaving at this knot rate is measured in months rather than weeks.

03What Wool does

The whole face is wool, selected yarn by yarn, soft without being slack. Beneath it the frame is cotton, and a measured amount of recycled synthetic thread goes in to keep the rug from stretching over its life. Halıcızade names that content rather than describing the piece as though there were nothing in it but wool.

04At the loom in in Afghanistan

For washing, a workshop rather than a bathtub. Knotted by hand in Afghanistan and Pakistan, at around two thousand knots per ten square centimeters. Yellow field, with brown, blue and green carried in the smaller figures. The surface is entirely wool; the foundation is cotton with a little recycled synthetic yarn. Months of work go into a rug at this density and this size. 152 × 194 cm (5'0" × 6'4"), which suits a sitting area or a room where people are received. Colors this saturated will look different under a warm bulb than under daylight. Take it to a rug workshop when it needs washing. It was made for the part of a house where visitors are put, and it behaves accordingly.