Modern hand-tufted design is a younger tradition than knotting and answers different questions. The neoteric drawing here is built around the questions a contemporary room asks: how to ground the floor without dominating it, how to add colour without crowding the eye, how to look modern without dating quickly.

5 weeks of work for a team of two tufters and a finisher in an Indian workshop. Wool was pushed through a stretched cotton canvas one row at a time with a hand-held tufting gun, then sealed at the back with natural latex and a cotton scrim. The finishing pass was done by hand with long shears, levelling the pile so the drawing reads cleanly across the field. The relief between motif and ground was cut to a couple of millimetres, which is what makes the pattern legible at standing distance.

The composition

Colour holds at ivory and washed sky blue. A modern composition with the discipline of contemporary studio work: shapes proportioned to one another, no element competing for focus, the geometry sitting on the ground rather than pushing forward from it. The cut pile holds the colour and softens the edges of every shape so the rug feels considered rather than printed. With wear the pile compacts evenly and the colour pulls together, which is the patina the design is built to acquire.

The piece in a room

6' x 9' (183 x 274 cm) is the canonical size for a primary living room in a flat, a generous bedroom under a king bed, or a six-seater dining table with chairs pulled in. The palette carries the room without overwhelming it, and the geometry rewards the longer sight lines that the larger rug allows. The proportion is the most flexible in the catalogue: rooms grow into it rather than around it. The rug expects to be looked at, not just walked on.

Care

Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged. Every tufted rug loses fibre to a beater bar regardless of price. Blot spills with a clean cotton cloth, never rub. Expect light shedding for the first six weeks of use as loose fibres work themselves out of the pile; the body of the rug is unaffected. Professional dry clean every two to three years.

Reference

• Medium: hand-tufted wool, latex bonded, cotton scrim
• Dimensions: 6' x 9' (183 x 274 cm)
• Hands: 2 tufters and 1 finisher, ~5 weeks
• Pile: cut wool, hand-sheared finish
• Origin: India

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