Royal blue against black in broad blocks — almost electric where the pile catches the light, near-navy where it does not. One of these on a pale sofa changes the whole room. Lumbar, 36 × 58 cm.
Product details
- Product type: silk velvet ikat cushion cover (bakhmal) — cover only, no insert
- Origin: cloth handwoven in Margilan, Fergana Valley; cover cut and sewn in our workshop in Bukhara, Uzbekistan
- Front: handwoven silk velvet ikat — the pattern is tie-dyed into the silk pile before weaving, so the colour sits in the tips of the pile
- Back: handwoven cotton in a matching colour
- Size: 36 × 58 cm (14 × 23 in)
- Insert: not included — takes a 36 × 58 cm insert
- Closure: concealed zip in the side seam
- Main colours: royal blue; black; dark brown
- Design / motif: chequer blocks with feathered edges
- Pile direction: the nap runs one way, so the front reads darker or lighter depending on where you sit
- Condition: new
- Care: dry-clean. If you must wash, cold by hand with the insert out, never wring, dry flat with the pile up, never iron the face — steam from the reverse to lift the pile
Where it goes
On a sofa back or a bench, against grey, cream or natural linen. Keep it off a seat in daily use: silk pile crushes where it is sat on. More covers in this cloth are under Velvet Ikat Pillow Covers.
How this velvet is made
Bakhmal is the most laborious cloth Uzbek weavers make: the pattern is tied and dyed into the silk before a single pass is woven, and the weaver then works two warps at once — the ground, and the supplementary silk that is lifted over rods and cut by hand, row by row, to stand up as pile. A day at the loom is measured in centimetres. Fewer and fewer masters still do it: by our count only two to four remain in Uzbekistan working silk velvet ikat on a handloom. Because the cloth is woven 40 cm wide, a cover this size comes out of a single width with no join across the pile. Expect what the loom leaves — clouded motif edges, a hairline of colour shift, slight variation in pile height. The same cloth is sold silk velvet ikat by the metre if you would rather sew your own.
Dispatched from Bukhara within 24 hours by Uzbekiston Pochtasi tracked airmail: USA 9–18 working days, Europe and the UK 8–16, elsewhere 10–20.


















