Olive and Mauve Jaldar Stepped Medallion, 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 mid-toned olive ground hides everyday marks reasonably well. The cream and coral inside the medallions are the vulnerable colours — they are the brightest things on the rug and the first to grey, and on a mat this small they sit right where the traffic crosses.

Stand over this rug and the three medallions read as clean lozenges with smooth sloping sides. Crouch down and those sides turn out to be staircases: a dozen or more separate steps along each edge, each one a small rectangle of wool set slightly in from the one below it. Nothing on a knotted rug can be drawn as a true diagonal — the loom only offers a grid of horizontals and verticals — so every slope is a compromise between the angle the designer wanted and the size of step the weaver is willing to use.

The choice made here is a fine one. Coarser weaving takes the same diamond in five or six large steps, which reads as jagged from any distance; this one divides the same slope into far more and much smaller steps, which is more work and more counting but leaves the shape looking almost drawn rather than built. Run a finger down one edge and you can feel the steps you cannot see from above. It is the clearest thing on the rug to judge the fineness of the weave by, and it is worth doing before looking at anything else.