Gray Abstract Hand-Knotted Bamboo Viscose Rug

It looks less like a pattern than like layers of gray paint pulled across each other and left to dry: a hand-knotted rug in bamboo viscose and wool, 198 × 300 cm (6'6" × 9'10"), tied in India by Jaipur Rugs on a cotton foundation, its abstract drawing worked in gray and smoke.

01Up close to the pattern

One piece. There is no border, no medallion and nothing to orient it, so it can go down facing whichever way suits, and the room settles which end is which. The tones travel from a light dove through to a dark smoke, and the transitions are made in the knotting rather than printed, which is why they hold an edge close up and dissolve at four paces.

02At the loom in in India

Cellulose is what bamboo viscose is spun from, and it handles light the way a fine filament handles it — switch on a lamp at one end of a room and half the surface brightens while the other half stays flat. Jaipur Rugs is among the larger hand-knotting operations in India, and the piece carries their knot density rather than a workshop average.

03What the yarn is

Bamboo viscose and wool make the surface; the warp and weft below are cotton. Bamboo viscose is what the trade also calls bamboo silk, and this house uses one name for it, because the yarn is a viscose and not a silk. The sheen means a foot or a chair leg leaves its mark until the pile is brushed back. Hand it to a washing workshop; a bathroom floor is the wrong place to try it. Hand-knotted in India by Jaipur Rugs. Bamboo viscose and wool make the face; cotton lies underneath it. 198 × 300 cm (6'6" × 9'10") — a full room size with no directional pattern. Gray and smoke abstraction, layered rather than repeated. The bamboo viscose supplies a sheen that turns over as the viewing angle moves. Medium thickness, dense knotting. Holds footmarks and chair marks while the pile stays pressed. Professional washing keeps both the surface and the sheen. Gray floors are usually the safest choice in a room, and this is one of the few that is also the most interesting thing in it.