8' x 9'6" Ziegler Chobi Peshawar Rug | Blue All Over Rosette Lattice | Hand-Spun Wool, New

This is a brand new, never used Ziegler Chobi woven in Peshawar from hand-spun natural wool on a cotton foundation, and it is the kind of piece that reads quiet from across the room and detailed up close. At 8' x 9'6" it covers the most requested footprint in the house, sitting comfortably in the 8x10 area rug size range with enough room to carry a sofa group or a six seat table. The pile is low, even and dense, the fringe is undyed, and the selvedges are firm and straight as shown in the corner and fold photographs. Every rug we ship carries a certificate of authenticity confirming it as a genuine hand-knotted Oriental rug, knot by knot, with no machine work anywhere in it.

Design and Motifs

The field is an all over design built from rows of large octagonal rosettes, 4 across and 5 down, each one drawn with a serrated outline and a small 4 petal flower at its center. Between them sit blue diamond cartouches filled with stylized blossoms and hooked leaf tips, so the eye reads a continuous lattice rather than a repeat of isolated shapes. Slender vine work loops out of every junction and ties the grid together, a drawing job that only holds up at a decent knot count, which you can see in the close detail shot where the vine keeps a clean curve instead of stepping. The main border runs a procession of fan palmettes and split leaf scrolls, flanked by coral guard stripes and a plain outer band that finishes the rug the way a frame finishes a picture. There is no central medallion, which is exactly why this layout works under furniture: cover a third of it and the pattern still makes sense.

A Blue Field Tempered by Ivory, Coral and Sage

Blue is the leading color and it appears in two registers: a deep sapphire in the connecting diamonds and lattice bars, and a softer smoky blue that washes over the ground between the rosettes and settles toward a grey green in raking light. The rosettes themselves are worked in ivory, sand and a muted sage that keeps the whole field from going cold. Coral is the accent that does the heavy lifting, outlining each medallion, running the guard stripes and filling the outer border with a warm apricot tone that photographs brighter than it looks underfoot. The main border is ivory to oatmeal, with sage leaves and small blue rosettes scattered across it. Because the yarn is hand-spun, the dye sits unevenly on the fiber and every color breaks into subtle horizontal striations, the natural abrash you can see across the field shots. The overall effect is soft and slightly faded from the day it was finished, which is the entire point of the Chobi palette.

Peshawar Weaving and the Ziegler Tradition

Peshawar has become the center for Ziegler Chobi weaving, and the good workshops there still do it the slow way: highland wool hand-spun on a spindle rather than machine-carded, dyed in small batches with plant and mineral dyes, then washed to take the sheen down. Chobi means wood, a nod to the walnut husk and other natural dyestuffs behind the warm tones in the border. Weavers knot on a cotton warp and weft, beat the rows down firmly, then shear the pile low so the drawing stays crisp, which is what gives a rug like this its clean pattern definition on the back as shown in the fold photograph. Hand-spun yarn also takes wear well, since the fiber is longer and less abraded than machine-spun wool, and the low shear means less to crush under a table leg. This one is new and unused, with straight sides, square corners and even pile from end to end.