Rugsville Ikat Ivory Bamboo Silk 4'6" x 6'6"

Ikat is a resist-dye discipline, not a weaving discipline. The pattern is bound into the warp threads with cotton string before they ever reach the loom, dyed, untied, and only then woven. The blur at every edge of every motif comes from the small movement of the threads in the dye bath. That softness is the entire point of the form.

The pile is hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation. 2 weavers shared the loom across 2-3 months, working at roughly 100 knots per square inch. That gives a finished count of around 345 thousand hand-tied knots. The dyes were prepared in small batches and the wool was lowered into them before being washed in clean water and sun-dried over several days. Every step is done by hand because the result depends on it.

The composition

The motifs feather at every edge, the way an ikat always does, and the colour shifts where the dye took unevenly across the bound yarn. Read as a flat graphic the field is symmetric. Read at close range it is full of small chromatic events. The dominant tones run to ivory.

What you are buying

This is an honest entry into hand-knotted collecting. Wool, cotton foundation, hand-tied knots, finished by hand. The price reflects the smaller scale of the piece rather than any compromise in the weaving. Used and conserved, it holds and grows in value the way every hand-tied carpet does.

The piece in a room

4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm) is the working scale for a flat-living dining area or a primary bedroom with the rug under the lower two-thirds of the bed. The composition fills the eye without overwhelming the room. Sits well alongside leather, brass, ceramic, and the soft greys of poured concrete.

Conservation

Rotate end to end every six months so light and traffic age the surface evenly. Vacuum weekly with the beater bar disengaged, suction only. Blot any spill with a clean cotton cloth, working from the outside in, and never rub the pile. A hand wash by a wool-trained conservator every five years keeps the dye bright and the foundation flexible. With this routine the rug runs three generations.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted wool on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm)
• Construction: hand-tied asymmetric knot
• Knot density: ~100 KPSI
• Total knot count: ~345k
• Hands: 2 weavers, 2-3 months
• Pile: 10 mm, hand-spun wool
• Dye: vegetable and low-impact mineral
• Origin: India

Free delivery across India. Cash on delivery accepted. 7-day exchange window. Crated and insured in transit.