Working a sari-silk pile by hand is slow because the fibre is variable. Each knot has to be tied against thread that may have come from a different bolt of sari, dyed in a different season, by a different hand. What the irregularity gives back is light. The rug catches sunlight differently at every hour of the day.

Two-handed work for 4 months by 2 weavers seated together at the beam. Around 120 knots per square inch on a cotton foundation. Roughly 415,000 hand-tied knots in total. Recycled sari silk for the pile, drawn for its long staple and the way it holds colour through years of foot traffic. The colour was drawn from a workshop palette held over decades, with each batch matched against the master cartoon before the loom was strung.

The composition

The palette: muted grey. A pile that refuses to dull, the recycled silk threads holding their dye memory and lifting the field at every angle. The pile will compact slightly under traffic in the first season and the colour will pull together; the rug looks more itself with use, not less.

What you are buying

The price reflects the loom-time and the fibre, nothing else. A new Sari Silk weaving of this size and density would sell at three to four times this figure through a London or New York dealer; the same piece would carry a similar premium at a major auction house. A hand-knotted carpet of this quality holds its value over decades and tends to gain rather than lose.

The piece in a room

4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm) works under a coffee table with seating arranged around it, in a primary bedroom as a foot-of-the-bed runner, or as the anchor in a small reading area. The gray palette pairs with rattan, leather, linen upholstery, and wood flooring across the warm spectrum. The proportions also fit a child's bedroom or a smaller dressing area without crowding the floor plan. The drawing rewards the room being kept simple around it.

Conservation

Half-turn rotation each season to even out wear. Weekly vacuuming with the beater off, suction only. For spills, a clean dry cotton towel pressed into the pile, never scrubbed. A professional hand wash every five to six years. Under this regime the rug is a multi-generation object; it does not wear out, it gains patina.

Reference

• Medium: hand-knotted recycled sari silk on cotton foundation
• Dimensions: 4' x 6' (122 x 183 cm)
• Construction: Persian asymmetric knot
• Knot density: ~120 KPSI
• Total knot count: ~415,000
• Hands: 2 weavers, 4 months
• Pile: shorn close, hand-finished
• Origin: India

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