White Plain Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

Four thousand grams of yarn to the square meter, an 18 mm pile, and loops big enough to read as stitches rather than knots: a plain white rug, hand-knotted in India from 70% wool and 30% polyester.

01The origin of the pattern

There is no pattern on it. The white is flecked rather than flat, and ten sizes are made, out to a 100 × 500 cm (3'3" × 16'5") corridor length. Up close the surface looks knitted. The loops are tied large and stand proud of each other, which is where the resemblance to a heavy wool sweater comes from, and the flecking in the yarn keeps the white from going clinical.

02The mark of slow weaving

It settles beside oak and it settles beside black steel, and in a room of pale walls it does the work a texture is supposed to do — it gives the eye somewhere to rest without giving it anything to read. Made entirely by hand in India.

03How it feels underfoot

The fiber is stated as it is: seven parts wool to three parts polyester, the polyester there to keep the loops from crushing. At 18 mm this is a deep rug, and depth has consequences. A door will not clear it, crumbs disappear into it and stay there, and we would not put it in a kitchen or under a dining table.

04What it sits well with

Underfoot in a bedroom it is the best thing in the house. Hand-knotted in India, loop by loop. 70% wool and 30% polyester. 4,000 g/m² and an 18 mm pile — heavy, thick and firm to stand on. Flecked white, no pattern, with the texture doing all of the work. Ten sizes, including 80 × 300, 100 × 400 and 100 × 500 cm runners. Too deep for a doorway and too open for a kitchen floor. Professional washing; a pile this deep holds water at home. Rugs like this flatten where the traffic goes and stay tall everywhere else, and after a few years that map of the room is the most interesting thing about it.