Halishte

Halishte is a full-fibre fabric for which only the best quality, so-called living wool is used for hand knotting. It is a unique product that serves as a completely original rug or spread.

The magical southern Bulgarian mountains of the Rhodope Mountains are full of legends of the ancient Thracians who had their shrines on the mountaintops and held magical ceremonies there, but also more recent stories about the turbulent fate of the local Bulgarians during the Ottoman rule.
Traditional Rodopian multi-storey houses, scattered in picturesque mountain villages, have long been decorated with hand-knotted woolen fabric with the mysterious name of halishte, along with Rodopian blankets.
It is a spread that can be used in many ways - to decorate a bed with its unusual aesthetics, to make a large living space cosy when laid out on the floor, to encourage lounging with a book or to create a comfortable corner for sipping coffee at a low table...
It perfectly fulfils the role of thermal insulation and can thus fully replace the bed with mattress and duvet. Many people hang it on the wall just for decoration. In the interior, it is perfectly complemented by natural materials - especially wood, but the halishte will also create an unexpected effect in a modern minimalist interior, which will be properly spiced up.
Halishte is a full-fibre fabric, which is made using so-called living wool. It is a very high quality rhodope wool with a long pile that is only minimally processed after shearing. The pile, the length of which is not further modified, is tied into larger bundles which are then hand woven into the wool warp on the loom. This semi-finished product is then combed and also undergoes wet cleaning. This produces a product whose fibres are up to 25 cm long. Thanks to the fact that natural, unspun wool is used in its production, the halishte has an incredible softness and smoothness, and a lifespan that can be counted on for several decades.
We only offer the original Rhodope halisthe in natural shades, as the wool used in its production is not dyed in any way. The woolen pile comes in many shades - from bright white, to golden amber to chestnut. Dark brown to black wool in particular is rarer. A coat made from it is therefore valued very highly. This wool comes from small farms belonging to the Karakachans, a small ethnic minority that travels with their herds along the ridges of the Rhodope and Stara Planina mountains.
The weaving of the chalishte requires not only experience and talent, but also a great deal of creativity on the part of the weavers, who then decide on the final form of the spread - whether the individual colours will flow into each other like waves on the sea or form various symmetrical patterns. Each individual halishte is thus essentially an inimitable original and, in many cases, a work of art by which the wealth of its owner was judged in the past.
At your request, we can make a halishte in the size that best suits your idea. When ordering a non-typical size, please note that it is handmade. It is more time-consuming than machine production - usually just the weaving itself (without other preceding and following production processes) takes several days.

The halishte can be cleaned chemically or washed by hand in cold or lukewarm water (up to 25°C), using wool detergents. It is recommended to maintain by frequent ventilation in fresh air and sunlight, beating, vacuuming only on low power.