Slate Blue and Silver Floral Round, Hand-Knotted Wool and Silk Rug

Ghazni wool ground with a silk pattern, hand-knotted, with a fine fringe following the full circumference. A mixed-fibre rug needs to be treated as the more delicate of its two materials: care for this one as you would a silk rug, not a wool one.

A silk-faced pile shades and tracks wherever it is walked on — normal, and it brushes back out, but near-constant in a busy room. A round rug also needs a round pad or one cut to shape; a rectangular pad will show as ridges under the curved edges.

A border on a rectangular rug has four corners, and corners are where a weaver hides things. If the repeating motif does not divide evenly into the length of a side, the discrepancy gets absorbed in the corner ornament and nobody notices. A circle has no corners. The border here is a true ring, and the repeat has to close exactly — the last motif must meet the first with no gap and no overlap, right the way round three separate concentric bands. Follow one band with a finger and look for the join; on a well-drawn rug you will not find it, and that is the test. The count has to be worked out before a single knot is tied, because the circumference is fixed by the shape and there is nowhere to absorb an error. The silk adds the second layer: the pattern is silk and the ground is wool, close in tone but opposite in surface, so the tracery lifts and dims as you move and the rug never looks quite the same twice.