Turquoise and Rose Polychrome Lattice Jaldar, Hand-Knotted Wool Rug

100% wool pile, hand-knotted at a fine gauge, with a natural fringe at both ends. Wool is resilient and forgiving underfoot, which makes this a practical choice for a corridor that gets real use.

A mid-toned turquoise ground hides everyday marks better than a pale rug. The cream inside the rosettes is what will show first, and because the flowers cover the whole field rather than sitting in a central column, that wear spreads evenly rather than concentrating — which on a runner is an advantage. At 98cm wide this is heavier than a standard runner, so roll rather than fold it when moving it.

Try to trace the lattice with a finger and you will find there is nothing to trace. The field reads unmistakably as a net of diamonds, and yet no line has been drawn anywhere on it. Every edge of every diamond is made from separate small flowers, each detached from its neighbours, with the turquoise ground running freely between them. The net exists only because the eye joins the flowers up.

That is a harder thing to weave than a drawn lattice. A continuous outline forgives a good deal — if the line wanders by a knot or two nobody notices, because the line itself carries the shape. Here the shape is carried by the spacing between free-standing motifs, so a single flower set slightly off its place breaks the alignment the whole field depends on. Sight along one of the diagonals at a shallow angle and you can see how straight the weaver has held them over three metres. Then look at the flowers themselves, where the discipline runs the other way: they are worked in a rotating set of colour combinations — rose and cream, gold and brown, dark green and ivory — so that neighbouring flowers rarely repeat each other.