Beige Plain Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

There is more than one beige in it: ivory where the light falls, a cooler gray-beige where it does not, and the drift between them is the whole of the pattern. This is a plain hand-knotted rug, four fifths wool and one fifth viscose, tied in India at 2,800 grams to the square meter over a twelve-millimeter pile.

01Coming off the loom

Nine sizes, with 130 × 190 cm (4'3" × 6'3") as the small one and 250 × 350 cm (8'2" × 11'6") as the largest. The knots are left large and visible, so the field is textured the way a hand-knitted thing is textured, and the tone shifts follow the knots rather than any drawing.

02What it sits well with

Against dark brown or anthracite furniture the rug opens a room up; on wide oak boards, in a Scandinavian arrangement of pale wood and linen, it settles in quietly and gives the floor something to stand on. A word of warning about the hand of it: this is firm, not plush.

03At the loom in in India

Underfoot it reads closer to a heavy woollen coat than to a deep pile, and a buyer expecting softness will be disappointed on the first step. Every knot is tied in India. Wool makes up four fifths of the yarn and viscose the remaining fifth, and it is the viscose that puts the faint light into the beige; without it the color would sit dead. At 2,800 g/m² the rug is medium in weight — dense enough to lie flat from the day it is unrolled, light enough for two people to move.

04Knot by knot, by hand

At 12 mm the pile is deeper than a flatweave and a long way short of a shag. It also comes in 80 and 100 cm runner widths, at 300 and 400 cm long. Have it washed professionally. Knotted by hand in India. Four fifths wool to one fifth viscose; the viscose is what carries the light in the color. 2,800 g/m², 12 mm pile — medium weight, medium depth. No pattern: beige moving between ivory and a cool gray across the field. Knots large enough to see, and a firm hand rather than a plush one. Nine sizes: 80 × 150, 130 × 190, 170 × 240, 200 × 300 and 250 × 350 cm, with 80 and 100 cm runners at 300 and 400 cm long. Professional washing. In ten years the ivory areas will have gone a shade warmer and the knots will have flattened slightly, and it will look better for both.