2'1" x 26' Pakistani Bokhara Runner | Wool | Red

At Width: 2'1" x Length: 26' this is a runner for one long corridor and not much else: twenty-five inches across and twenty-six feet from fringe to fringe. It was knotted in Pakistan in the Bokhara manner, the pile is soft wool, and at a glance it reads as a single line of pale guls running the whole length of a dark red ground.

The design

The field carries one column of guls, the rounded octagonal medallion of Turkmen weaving, set close enough that the ground between them never opens into empty space. Each gul is quartered by a fine cross and filled with small hooked branches and dots, and the gaps between them hold stepped hooked figures and little bracket shapes. At both ends the field stops against a panel of diamond lattice, each diamond holding a single speck of light. The borders are narrow and repeat without interruption down both sides: a main stripe of eight-pointed rosettes with dark centres, flanked by beaded guard stripes of alternating dots, and plain ivory fringe finishing both ends.

The colour

The ground is a strong red that deepens towards brick where the pile lies away from the light and lifts almost to scarlet where it lies towards it. Against that, the guls and border rosettes are worked in ivory and cream with apricot and a soft celadon green, and every one of them is outlined in a brown so dark it reads as black, which is what keeps the pale shapes from blurring into the red at a distance. The end panels mix the same green and apricot into a close lattice, darker overall than the field.

The making

Hand-knotted, with a pile of soft wool cut low enough that the small border figures hold their edges. The rug is new and in perfect condition, with even pile across its length and clean fringe at both ends. Weaving a twenty-six foot length at this width means keeping one repeat in register on the loom for a very long time, which is the particular demand of a runner like this among hand-knotted rugs.