Red and Ivory Diamond Lattice Kilim, Hand-Woven Wool

Material: 100 percent hand-spun wool, flat-woven with soumak embroidered lattice. 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 weave rather than across it.
• 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.

This is the most finely worked of the Afghan flatweaves — the diamond lattice is drawn small, the borders run five and six bands deep on every side, and the whole surface is soumak, a wrapping stitch worked over the warps one at a time rather than woven through them. That is slow work, and it shows in the density: there are several hundred separate compartments in the field, each given its own star or rosette in a different combination of scarlet, gold, sage and slate. Look at any two next to each other and they differ. Because soumak stands slightly proud of the ground, the rug also has relief — the ivory lattice catches light where the red recedes, so the pattern reads as much by texture as by colour.