Cream Plain Handwoven Wool Rug, Lori Baft Series

Baft is the Persian word for woven, and Lori Baft is the name a whole family of thick, plainly drawn handwoven rugs goes by. This one is cream with brown in it, handwoven in wool on cotton in India, 120 × 180 cm (3'11" × 5'11"). There is one of it. Plain is the hardest thing to weave well, because there is no pattern to hide behind and every irregularity in the yarn shows.

01What the yarn is

What you get in exchange is abrash — the faint horizontal banding that appears where wool from two dye lots meets in one field, a shade apart and no more. On a patterned rug abrash is a flaw. On a plain cream field it is the whole visual event, and the brown here is what it has to play against. It was woven in India, wool over cotton, and the wool is thick enough that the pile stands rather than lying flat.

02When you walk in

At 120 × 180 cm this is a rug for one specific job: in front of a sofa, beside a bed, or under a small dining table for two. It is not big enough to organize a living room and it should not be asked to.

03To make it last

Cream wool at floor level is honest work — it will need vacuuming more often than a dark rug and it will look worse than a dark rug between cleans. A professional wash restores it; nothing at home does.

04What Wool does

One piece, at this size, in this arrangement of tone. Handwoven in India, wool pile on a cotton foundation. Plain drawing in cream, with brown running through the field. 120 × 180 cm (3'11" × 5'11"), one piece only. Abrash — the soft banding left by separate dye lots — is visible and is not a defect. A thick pile that stands up rather than lying down. Sized for a sofa front, a bedside, or a small table. Baft means woven in Persian; the series keeps its name untranslated. Restore it with a professional wash rather than a home method. Plain rugs get bought to disappear, and the good ones turn out to be the thing people put a hand down to touch.