Tsar Carpets based in Melbourne, Australia and Brooke Aitken Design founder debuts Passage, a wool and Tencel collection celebrating the passing of time and shifting of light.

People who appreciate handmade ceramics understand the process takes time, passion, love and commitment. Handmade ceramics are unique, no two pieces will ever be the same. Different clays shrink at different rates from approximately 10- 20% depending on the type of clay.

The clays that are used are all stoneware or porcelain and have been chosen for the results that can be achieved with the glazes that are mixed.

The glazes are chosen so that we can achieve specific colours or finishes and sometimes applying two glazes to get different effects. These glazes are not commercially available and take a lot of testing to achieve the results that we want to attain.

Stoneware ceramics are usually fired twice. The first firing is called a bisque fire and usually the kiln temperature will be between 900 and 1000 C. The second firing is a glaze firing to vitrify the piece and the temperature is raised to about 1250 to 1280 C (depending on the glazes and the clay).

Any exposed pieces where there is no glaze will have a liquid quartz applied to them to create an invisible, long lasting, protective barrier against moisture, food juices, & other contaminants. Stoneware is dishwasher, microwave, and oven safe. Most pieces can go from the oven to the table to the dishwasher.

There are many factors to consider when choosing a rug for your bedroom such as decor, style, natural light, bed type and floor / wall colour.

Please note the mattress sizes above will vary slightly from region to region. The difference in sizes between Australia, Europe, UK and America are slight but if in doubt please measure your bed dimensions to ensure you are purchasing the right size rug.

Typically a 2m x 3m standard rug will work well with a Queen size bed or the Europe King size bed. For larger beds such as the Australian King, a larger rug such as a 3m x 4m rug will work well.

Example above showing the 2m x 3m Night Blue rug with an Australian Queen size bed.

Rill + Stone founder Brooke Aitken is pleased to announce that a partnership has been formed with Tsar Carpets to manufacture and market the Rill + Stone rug collection “Passage”.

We collaborated with Tsar Carpets as they manufacture rugs to last a lifetime. Tsar Carpets use the highest quality design principles, materials and quality assurance to create heirloom products. Rill + Stone’s ethos is of longevity of use for a sustainable future, one that Tsar Carpet’s products embody. Tsar uses the finest grade of New Zealand wool to create hand-tufted rugs that are both highly durable and soft under foot.

The Passage collection is about the marking of time, something so important after years of pandemic time blurring. Each rug celebrates a moment or a period in time of a year – Day, Night, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. They are also a created with an architect’s design desire for making marks – a graphic metronome of marks on a page. Each rug has been created to achieve a sense of movement, with either physical slips and cut outs in the rugs, or by the pattern upon them.

Each of the 9 rugs in the first collection are both a reflection and culmination of Brooke’s design experience working around the world in Japan, London, Australia and the United States. Her architecture and interior work have always been very influenced by her travels through Japan at an early age. Brooke is very inspired by the reverence that is shown to the changing of the seasons in Japanese culture and how this can allow a person to pause and be present in that moment.