Cream and Red Hooked Medallion Kilim, Hand-Woven Wool

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

Care instructions

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

Most flatweaves in this tradition fill the field with bands and leave it at that. This one commits to a single large medallion instead, hooked along every edge and set on an open cream ground, which is a harder thing to bring off: with no banding to carry the eye, the drawing has to hold the centre on its own. Around it the weaver has scattered small stars, combs and hooks, the sort of filler motifs that get worked in as the weaving grows rather than planned from the start. A row of stylised trees runs across the lower panel. The cream ground is spun from undyed wool, which is why it reads warm rather than white and why the madder red sits against it so comfortably.