Cream Oushak Frame-Pattern Hand-Knotted Pure Silk Rug

The Oushak frame — a wide bordered rectangle with the field left comparatively open — is the pattern here, worked in cream and closed by red borders on a rug of 171 × 242 cm (5'7" × 7'11") woven in pure silk from warp to weft. Fine leaves and flower forms are scattered through the field.

01The mark of slow weaving

Made by hand in China. One piece. Most of the drawing happens at the edges. The red borders are the strongest color on the rug and they hold a field that has been kept deliberately quiet, with leaf and flower forms distributed rather than repeated. Just inside the fringes at either end the knotting tightens and a band of raised flower heads appears, the densest work on the piece and the place to look if you want to see what the weaver could do.

02How it feels underfoot

Silk shifts color with the angle of the light, so the cream travels from bone to honey depending on where you stand. Silk in the warp, silk in the weft, silk in the pile: there is no cotton anywhere in it, which is unusual, and it is why the rug is so thin and so heavy for its thickness.

03From the hand of the weaver

It was woven by hand in China, where silk rug weaving has run continuously for centuries. A rug with no cotton in the structure is more delicate than one with, so it should not sit under a door that sweeps and should never be dragged. Walnut and maple sit well beside it; brass fittings push it toward the formal. Take it to a rug washer, never a home machine. Pure silk throughout, warp and weft included. Woven by hand in China in the traditional silk technique. Cream field with red borders and scattered leaf and flower forms. A band of raised, tightly knotted flower heads inside each fringe. 171 × 242 cm (5'7" × 7'11") — a sitting room, a study, an office. Delicate: it wants a quiet floor and careful handling. Professional washing only. One example; the design is not rewoven to order. What does it mean that a rug is pure silk in the warp and weft? Most silk rugs are silk only in the pile and use cotton for the structure underneath.

04Knot by knot, by hand

Here the warp and weft are silk as well, which makes the rug thinner, heavier in the hand for its thickness, and more delicate at the edges. Where is the finest work on this rug? Just inside the fringe at each end, where the knot count rises and a band of raised flower heads is worked. That band took longer than an equivalent area of the open field and is the clearest evidence of the weaver's skill. It reads formal beside walnut and brass, and modern on a bare pale floor with nothing else in the room competing.