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

Wool for the body, viscose for the light, cotton underneath: a loom-woven rug in cream, 230 × 330 cm (7'7" × 10'10"), with faded vintage drawing worked across the surface. Heritage Series, woven in Kütahya, a single piece. Cream is the hardest ground to make interesting and the easiest to live with.

01Up close to the pattern

Here the motifs are set down softly, their edges worn rather than sharp, so the field carries a pattern without announcing one. In daylight the warm undertone lifts and the room reads brighter; under lamps the same ground goes quieter.

02Knot by knot, by hand

Beside plain furniture it disappears into the scheme, and beside classical furniture it holds the arrangement together from below. The technique is loom-woven — a mechanical loom lays down the structure in Kütahya and traditional hand work finishes it, which is where the hand-knotted feel comes from.

03What the yarn is

Wool makes up most of the pile. Viscose yarns are worked in with it so the drawing catches a little light instead of sitting flat, and cotton forms the base. It sheds and gives off dust very little, and it holds its shape over years. Heritage is produced in small runs, and this size in this color is not repeated to order. Loom-woven in Kütahya: mechanical structure, hand finishing. Wool pile with viscose worked through it, over a cotton foundation. Cream ground with soft-edged, faded vintage motifs. Warmer under lamps, brighter by day. 230 × 330 cm (7'7" × 10'10") — a large sitting room, with the seating inside the edges. A pale ground shows traffic; keep it out of a hallway. Small production run, and the only one at this size in cream. Cleaning is a job for a rug washer. Cream rugs settle rather than fade; in five years this will be a slightly warmer version of itself, and that is the whole of what happens to it.