Gray Vintage-Pattern Round Loom-Woven Wool Rug, Tempus Series

The Aegean has been weaving for as long as there are records of it, and these looms are the current form of that. A round wool rug, loom-woven, Tempus series: faded orange lozenges and chain links spreading out from the middle of a gray circle, in wool over cotton, with nothing at the edge to close it.

Nothing here is drawn with a hard line. The motifs have been given soft, dispersed edges, as though the color had been leaving them for thirty years, and the result is the look of an antique without the pretense of being one. The figures shrink as they travel outward and then simply stop — there is no border at the edge, so the pattern runs off the rug instead of being shut in. Set under a round side table among knitted cushions and plants it turns warm, and beside a bed it will hold a room on its own.

Wool and cotton are brought together by hand and by machine on the same loom, which is what gives a loom-woven rug the warmth of a knotted one at a fraction of the hours. The pile is medium and tightly packed, so it stays flat, sheds little and gives dust nowhere much to settle. Tempus is made in other sizes, other patterns and other colors, and every piece carries the tree of life. Vacuum weekly; leave the deep clean to a rug washer.

• Loom-woven in the Aegean region, hand and machine on one loom.
• Wool and cotton.
• Faded orange lozenges and chain links radiating from the center.
• No border at the edge, so the drawing runs off the circle.
• Soft, dispersed motif edges that read as age rather than as wear.
• Medium, tightly packed pile.
• Tree of life mark; other Tempus sizes and patterns exist.
• Weekly vacuuming, professional wash for anything deeper.

It will look older in ten years than it does today, and that is the only direction this drawing travels.