Multicolor Shawl-Pattern Hand-Knotted Wool Rug, Şahzade Series

Row after row of the shawl motif, which is where the pattern takes its name: a multicolor shawl-pattern hand-knotted wool rug from the Şahzade series, 155 × 204 cm (5'1" × 6'8"), red dominant with blue, green and beige worked through it, knotted in Afghanistan, wool over a cotton foundation. One piece. Red sets the key and the other colors answer it in stripes: blue and green inside the figures, beige wherever the drawing needs air.

01After the color

The palette is bright without being juvenile, because the tones themselves are mature ones — the reds run toward brick rather than scarlet and the greens sit low. Laid in a sitting room it becomes the loudest object present and the furniture ends up arranged around that. In a bedroom it does the opposite and simply warms the floor. Months of double-knotting in Afghanistan go into a rug this size, and the small departures that hand work leaves behind — a motif a knot wider here, a color shifting half a tone there — are what separate it from anything printed.

02What Wool does

The face is wool, the frame is cotton, and a little recycled synthetic yarn is set into the foundation for durability. The weave is dense, so it sheds very little. For cleaning, a rug washer. Knotted by hand in Afghanistan with the traditional double knot. Shawl motifs set out in rows rather than scattered across the field. Red leads, with blue, green and beige carried through the bands. Wool face on a cotton foundation, with a small share of recycled synthetic yarn. 155 × 204 cm (5'1" × 6'8"), a middling size for a sitting room or a bedroom. The weave is dense enough that shedding is minimal. Send it to a rug washer rather than cleaning it wet at home. Every row is slightly unlike the row above it, and after a few weeks that is the thing you look for.