Navy Floral Handwoven Wool Rug, Safir Series

Woven in India, and drawn in the classical floral manner: a handwoven rug on a navy ground with a flowering field carried across it, 95 × 160 cm (3'1" × 5'3"). Wool and cotton with viscose worked into the surface, from the Safir series.

01After the color

There is one of it. A dark ground is the hardest thing to draw on. Navy swallows outline, and the weaver is left relying on the lightest colors in the palette to keep the flowers legible against it. Under a window the ground reads as blue and the blossoms stand clear; by lamplight the whole field closes toward black and the drawing settles into it.

02What Wool does

The viscose in the yarn is what catches the light on the motifs, since it takes a shine that wool does not, so the flowers lift slightly rather than sitting flat in the ground. Handwoven in India in wool and cotton, with viscose through the pile. The work is done the way it is done anywhere: a person at a frame, one row at a time.

03Which furniture, which room

At 95 × 160 cm this is a small rug, which is worth saying plainly — it will furnish an entry, one side of a bed or the floor in front of a reading chair, and it will look lost in a living room.

04What the yarn is

Viscose does not take kindly to a wet cleaning at home; send it out. Handwoven in India; wool and cotton with viscose in the pile. Navy ground carrying a classical floral field. 95 × 160 cm (3'1" × 5'3") — entry, bedside or a reading chair. The viscose puts a shine on the motifs that the wool beneath them lacks. Safir series. Professional washing; do not wet it at home. A single piece. Dark-ground rugs are the ones that keep working when the furniture changes around them, which is the argument for navy over cream.