Suzani or Needlework Cover / Hanging

Twenty-eight rosettes, and nobody seems to have lost count.

This suzani, or needlework cover and hanging, comes from Uzbekistan and is cotton with embroidery. The word suzani comes from the Persian for needle, and Central Asian women traditionally embroidered these hangings and covers as part of a bride's dowry, to dress the walls and beds of a new home. Cream rosettes, each one slightly different, march in four rows by seven across a deep red ground. Small blossoms fill the gaps between them, and a yellow vine wanders around the border inside a dark edge. Eleven feet on its long side at 132 inches, and 82 on the short.

Somebody spent a very long time on this, and it shows.