Blue Vintage-Pattern Loom-Woven Wool Rug, Heritage Series

The fleece is New Zealand wool, chosen for a long even staple, and the motifs are picked out in viscose that sits brighter than the ground around them. A loom-woven rug from the Heritage series: hazy blue drawing scattered over a cream field, faded as though the pattern had been left out in the weather.

01Comes from from Anatolia

Woven in the Oushak region of western Anatolia. The fading is deliberate and it is woven in, not applied afterward. Edges of the motifs are softened so the blue never fully resolves, and the field keeps more cream than pattern — an old rug's proportions rather than a new one's.

02Coming off the loom

Blue on cream is the coolest combination in the series and it behaves accordingly: in a south-facing room it warms up and reads almost gray-green; in a north-facing one it stays clean and slightly severe. Oushak has been weaving for five hundred years, and the Heritage rugs are made there by combining a modern loom with hand finishing — the structure is laid down mechanically, the ends are closed by hand, and the workforce doing it is largely women.

03The rule of care

Pile is low, which gives dust less to settle into and makes the rug easy to run a vacuum over. Low pile also means less give underfoot than a thick rug: this one is for looking at and walking on, not for sitting on the floor.

04At the loom in in Anatolia

Professional washing. Loom-woven in the Oushak region of western Anatolia, finished by hand. New Zealand wool in the surface, viscose through the motifs. Blue vintage drawing on cream, faded in the weaving rather than afterward. Low pile — quick to vacuum, with little for dust to settle into. Cooler in a north-facing room; warmer and greener facing south. Less give underfoot than a deep-pile rug. Made in limited numbers within the Heritage series. Professional washing. A faded pattern has one advantage over a crisp one: it never dates, because it already looks as though it has.