9'9" x 13'9" Chobi Peshawar Rug | Sage Green Field with Burgundy Palmettes | Hand-Knotted Wool

This 9'9" x 13'9" Chobi Peshawar rug is a full room size piece, hand-knotted one knot at a time in hand-spun wool on a cotton foundation, and it arrives with a certificate of authenticity. Chobi weaving is the quiet end of the Oriental rug market: no harsh color, no glare, just softly washed vegetal tones over a classical drawing. The pile is low and even, the wool has that slightly waxy hand that only comes from hand-spun yarn, and the whole surface shifts between green and gold as you walk past it. At almost 10 feet by 14 feet it covers a large living room or a dining table with all 4 chairs pulled back, and it sits comfortably alongside the rest of our 10x14 Oriental rugs.

Design and Motifs

The field carries an open all-over composition rather than a central medallion, so the drawing reads well from any side of the room and never fights the furniture. Large burgundy rosettes and split palmettes sit in staggered rows, linked by a thin tendril vine that wanders the full length of the field, and between them the weaver dropped in ivory boteh paisleys and long serrated leaves that lean at slightly different angles from repeat to repeat. That small irregularity is the tell of a hand-drawn cartoon rather than a machine-perfect copy. The main border is a generous ivory band of alternating burgundy palmettes and broad sage leaves on a scrolling stem, framed on both sides by narrow guard stripes of small angular flowerheads. Corners are resolved cleanly, with the border turning the 4 corners without the pattern collapsing, which is a fair test of a weaver's skill on a rug this long. This kind of open all-over design is the reason Chobi pieces work equally well under traditional and transitional furniture.

Sage Green, Burgundy and Ivory

The ground is a muted sage green that has been washed down to a soft, dusty tone, and depending on the light and the direction of the pile it leans toward antique gold or warm olive. Nothing in the palette is loud. The palmettes and rosettes are a deep, slightly mottled burgundy that reads closer to dried rose than to fire engine red, and against the green ground that pairing is the whole character of the piece. Ivory does the lifting: it fills the wide main border, outlines the paisleys, and lights up the centers of the larger flowerheads so the eye has somewhere to rest. Look closely at the field and you will see very gentle banding where one dye lot of hand-spun wool met the next, the natural abrash that tells you the yarn was dyed in small batches. The overall effect is a neutral, earthy rug that sits quietly with cream walls, walnut floors, leather and linen, and it shows far less traffic than a light solid-color floor covering would. Other options in this family are grouped under green rugs.

Peshawar Weaving and Chobi Quality

Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan became one of the great hand-knotting centers of the last century, and the Chobi group, named for the wood-derived plant dyes used to color the yarn, is its best known output. The wool is hand-spun rather than machine-spun, which means the thickness of the yarn varies slightly and takes dye unevenly, and that is precisely what gives these rugs their depth instead of a flat printed look. Knotting is done on a cotton warp and weft, and the back, visible in the fold-over photo, shows a tight, regular grid of knots with clean, straight rows and no slack or bulging, the sign of a well-tensioned loom and an experienced weaver working a large format. The pile has been clipped low and given a soft finish wash, so the rug lies flat immediately and the drawing stays crisp. A hand-knotted wool piece built this way will take decades of real use in a family room, and it can be rotated, cleaned and passed on rather than replaced.