Cream and Sage Floral Handwoven Wool Rug, Sultanahmet Series

Months at the loom and tens of thousands of knots go into one of these: a Sultanahmet Series rug in cream, 177 × 243 cm (5'10" × 8'0"), hand-knotted in India using wool, cotton and bamboo viscose, with fine flowers scattered over the field and a sage green border closing it.

01A line from the archive

One piece. The border is what to look at. Sage green wraps the classical drawing the way new leaves wrap a garden, and inside it runs a thin mustard line that ties the green to the cream and stops the two from sitting apart. On the field itself the flowers are placed rhythmically but never densely, so there is room between them and the eye moves through the rug rather than across a surface.

02How it feels underfoot

Bamboo viscose is spun into the flower forms, which is where the silk-like brightness comes from. Wool and cotton give the ground its strength; the bamboo viscose is reserved for the drawing.

03Up close to the pattern

After the rug came off the loom its motifs were cut around individually with shears, which raises them slightly and is the reason the pattern has depth in a rug of ordinary pile height. The design follows the Oushak repertoire of western Anatolia.

04Color, by the light

It goes with solid and walnut-toned furniture, and against high-gloss modern pieces it will look like the older thing in the room, because it is. Give the washing to somebody who washes rugs for a living. Knotted by hand in India: wool, bamboo viscose, cotton. 177 × 243 cm (5'10" × 8'0") — in front of a sofa, or the length of a bed. Cream ground with finely drawn scattered flowers, sparse rather than crowded. Sage green border with a thin mustard band running inside it. Bamboo viscose worked into the flower forms for a silk-like brightness. Motifs carved back with shears after weaving, so they stand slightly raised. Drawn after the Oushak repertoire of western Anatolia. Sits with solid timber and walnut; reads old beside high-gloss furniture. Sage and cream is a combination that goes quiet in winter and comes back every spring, which is more than most color schemes manage.