Camel and Salmon Saf Prayer Design, Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

100% wool pile, hand-knotted, with a natural fringe at both ends. At this size the rug is light enough to lift and shake out, which is the easiest way to keep it clean.

A camel ground sits in the middle of the range for practicality. The cream in the dividing bands is the vulnerable colour — those bands run right across the rug at intervals, so they take traffic wherever it crosses. The dark green and navy niches will hide marks best; the salmon ones least.

This is a saf, a communal prayer rug carrying a row of niches rather than one, so that several people can use it side by side. Four niches here, each given its own ground colour: salmon, then navy, then a dark green, then salmon again. What is worth looking at closely is the lamp hanging in each one.

Every lamp is drawn in two halves, split straight down its vertical centre line, with a different colour on each side. In the green niche the left half is cream and the right half a clear orange — the only orange on the rug, and it appears exactly where the ground is darkest and would otherwise swallow a pale motif. In the navy niche both halves stay warm and pale, because against navy that is contrast enough. The weaver has adjusted the lamp to its own niche rather than repeating one lamp four times. That is a small decision made four separate times, and it is the kind of thing that separates a rug made by a person from a rug made to a plan.