Red Vintage-Pattern Round Loom-Woven Tencel Rug, Zade Series

Round, and made at two diameters: 160 cm (5'3"), or 200 cm (6'7"). Red at the middle, where the color is strongest, thinning outward into beige and a pale blue. A loom-woven rug from the Zade series in Tencel® and cotton, with a faded vintage drawing and no wool in it at all. The pattern looks bold from the doorway and softens as you approach, because the drawing was never given hard outlines: the motifs bleed at the edge the way a memory does when it has been gone over too many times.

Red concentrated at the center pulls the eye inward, which is what a round rug wants, having no direction of its own to give. Beside heavy classical furniture it holds its own; in a plain modern room it takes the hard corners off the floor plan, which is the reason to buy a round rug in the first place. Tencel® on a cotton foundation, made on looms in Kütahya, where machine knots and hand finishing divide the work and the house does not hide which half is which.

01What the yarn is

Tencel® is a cellulose fiber drawn from wood pulp under a Lenzing licence; it takes color deeply and gives a soft, shifting sheen, so the red is stronger seen from one side of a room and quieter from the other.

02The mark of slow weaving

Once the piece comes off the loom the fringes are braided by hand, singly, by women living in the villages near the workshop. Deep cleaning is a workshop job; a vacuum covers the rest. Loom-woven in Kütahya, Tencel® with cotton; no wool in it. Round, in 160 cm (5'3") and 200 cm (6'7") diameters. Red at the center, running out to beige and pale blue at the edge. A soft vintage drawing with no hard outlines anywhere. Fringes are braided by hand once weaving is finished. Carries the Halıcızade tree of life, the mark of a rug made for this house. Low pile, low shedding. Professional washing. Round rugs are hard to place and impossible to replace once a room has one; this is the reason.