Rust and Cream Maliki Kilim, Hand-Woven Wool

Material: 100 percent hand-spun wool, flat-woven with soumak embroidered banding. No pile.

Care instructions

• Always use a rug pad underneath — a flatweave slips easily without one.
• Vacuum gently with the beater bar off, working along the bands rather than across them.
• Turn the kilim over every year — it is reversible and wears evenly if used both sides.
• Blot spills immediately, working from the outside in.
• Have the kilim professionally cleaned when needed — never machine wash.

A kilim is woven rather than knotted, which means the pattern is the structure of the cloth rather than something worked on top of it. That constraint is why kilims look the way they do: no curves, no medallions, everything built from the geometry the loom allows. The Maliki weavers of northern Afghanistan take that further by working in bands, alternating plain woven stripes with rows of soumak embroidery that stand slightly proud of the surface, so the rug has texture as well as pattern and changes as the light moves across it. No two bands here repeat in the same order, which is the mark of a piece worked from memory rather than a cartoon. It is thin, light, reversible, and as at home on a wall or over a larger rug as it is alone on the floor.