Multicolor Patchwork Loom-Woven Wool Rug, Zade Series

Woven on looms in Kütahya and finished in the houses around it: a Zade Series patchwork rug in wool, cotton and Tencel®. It comes to 200 × 300 cm, or 6'7" by 9'10" in feet. The field is built from blocks of Anatolian motif — navy in one square, red in the next, beige and green holding them apart — with a tree of life worked through the whole arrangement. The blocks do not come from one place.

01The memory of a region

Each carries a motif belonging to a different Anatolian weaving tradition, set side by side as though pieces of separate rugs had been brought together on purpose. Navy gives depth to some squares and red gives heat to others.

02What the yarn is

The tree of life runs through the composition, plain in a few blocks and nearly invisible in the rest, and finding it is half of what the design is for. Cotton, wool and Tencel®, worked together on a mechanical loom, with the finishing done by hand.

03The mark of slow weaving

Once woven, each rug goes out to households in the district, where the fringes are knotted by women there, one strand at a time; it is the step that takes longest and the one nobody has mechanized. The handle is matte and firm, close to a hand-woven rug, and shedding is slight.

04How it feels underfoot

Professional washing. Made on looms in Kütahya, Türkiye. Wool, cotton and Tencel® yarns. 200 × 300 cm. Patchwork blocks, each drawn from a different Anatolian tradition. A tree of life is carried through the field, sometimes clear and sometimes hidden. Fringes knotted by hand in village households after the rug leaves the loom. Matte and firm underfoot; very little shedding. Professional washing. Rustic rooms take it for the motifs and modern ones take it for the color, which is an unusual thing for a single rug to manage.