Afghan blue Khorjin carpet

This handmade Afghan blue Khorjin carpet is an eye-catching statement piece rug that will add texture and visual interest to any room. 

This Afghan carpet contains captivating colours and an intriguing design that will suit either a contemporary home or a more traditional setting. The colours are breath-taking: it shows a beautiful blue field / main colour which is decorated with rows of small tribal motifs. Towards each end of the carpet, the design shows multicolour patterned bands of design in colours including rust, burnt orange, ochre, green and cream. 

There's more to know about this Afghan blue Khorjin carpet

This Afghan carpet is packed with interest. The design is the best of both worlds: it is a fusion of traditional and modern ideas. 

In recent times the ingenious Afghan carpet weavers and producers have been busily recreating ancient carpet designs by giving these old patterns a dose of modern flair. This Khorjin design carpet takes this to another level.

"Khorjin" is the name for a saddle bag; a tribal bag with a large pocket either side that was traditionally used on pack animals. This imaginative piece translates this theme into a statement piece carpet. How clever?

Strictly speaking, rug enthusiasts might also see parallels of this design in "Mafrash" bags. These were large bedding bags, made and used by nomadic people, that when opened up look rather like this carpet. 

The materials this blue Afghan carpet is made from

This modern Afghan carpet is made from traditional carpet making yarns. Wool and cotton. These two fibres have been proven over the years to be extremely durable. 

The pile of this carpet is made from wool. Afghan wool is known for it's robust nature, and the wool in this carpet is also hand-spun and naturally dyed. Hand-spinning the wool adds extra strength to the woollen fibre by creating a tight twist to the yarn. The natural dyed wool is beautifully coloured with exquisite natural variations of tone. 

You might notice the rather snazzy fringes on this Khorjin carpet. These are intricately woven into a lattice and the fringes are bunched and wrapped with colourful embellishments. Very cool!

The fringes, however, are much more important than simply looking snazzy. They are in fact made of cotton, and each strand runs all of the way through the carpet, exiting each end as the fringe. The fringes are known as the warp threads, and these are so important because these are the first threads attached to the loom before the weaving starts. 

How this Khorjin rug was made

This Afghan carpet was handmade by using traditional carpet weaving techniques that for generations have been tried and trusted.

A carpet of this size would have been woven by two weavers working side-by-side. The woollen pile of this carpet was made by a time-consuming method of hand-knotting the pile onto the cotton warps. Each and every tuft of pile was meticulously tied onto pairs of warp threads. The weavers work by tying the knots in rows from one side of the loom to the other. Once the row of knots is finished, weft threads are woven between the warps and are then compacted against the knots. This is repeated over and over. 

The accumulation of all of the different coloured knots collaborate to form the pattern of the carpet. The knots in the carpet combine to act rather like pixels in a digital image. How clever is that?

Where you can use this handmade Afghan carpet in your home

The great thing about this blue Khorjin carpet is that it is made from high quality and extremely durable natural materials. Added to this, you can be assured that because of the sturdy nature of it's hand-knotted weave that this is a rug of great longevity. Oriental rugs are especially known for their hard wearing nature. 

As a result, this is a carpet that you can lay out pretty much anywhere in your home. It's a great size for use in a living room between sofas; it is one of those rugs that'll give you great pleasure whiling away the hours in gazing at it's beautiful colours and enthralling patterns. 

Key details: 

• Country of origin: Afghanistan
• Size: 235×175cm / 7’8″x5’9″
• Thickness: 7mm
• Pile: Wool, hand-knotted
• Warp: Cotton
• Age: New