Blue Rug: Teal, Indigo, Cobalt and Navy in Hand-Knotted Wool

Blue has a reputation for coolness, and in a north-facing room with grey walls a pale blue rug can indeed feel chilly. That is the fault of the company it keeps. Next to wood, leather, linen and warm lamplight, the same blue turns deep and comfortable.

Wool does part of the work. Its surface is matt and soaks up light, where synthetic fibre in blue quickly takes on a metallic gleam. A dense wool pile in teal or indigo looks closer to velvet than to plastic. To be safe, choose a shade with green in it, teal over cobalt, and surround it with warm materials.

The opposite of blue is orange, and anything in that direction makes a blue rug sing: tan leather, copper, rust, terracotta, honey-coloured oak. A grey sofa gains presence on a blue floor, a beige one gains life. Mustard and blush work as small accents.

White with blue slides quickly towards the seaside. To avoid it, swap pure white for cream and bring in a third element, wood or black. The one hard case is a room where walls, floor and furniture are all cool grey. Then there is no warmth anywhere, and a rug cannot supply it alone.

The Beni Mrirt rugs here come in the common living-room sizes, around 6 ft 6 in × 10 ft and 8 × 10 ft 6 in. Several of the Beni Mguild pieces are unusually long for their width, about 6 ft 5 in × 12 ft 8 in or 6 ft 7 in × 13 ft 10 in. Sizes like that are rare, and they solve a problem with few other answers: a long sitting room, the strip in front of a wall of glass, a dining area with a long table.

There are also a couple of hallway runners, one of them in light mint and turquoise. The measured size is given with every rug, because hand work does not keep to standard formats.

The Beni Mrirt pieces in teal and indigo are thick and heavy. Some are nearly plain with a ribbed surface, others carry cream lines or graphic fields. The Beni Mguild rugs show blue as a large, quiet expanse in cobalt or navy, sometimes overlaid with a fine grid.

Each rug is one of a kind and photographed as it is. Blues vary from screen to screen more than most colours, so read the description of the shade as well as looking at the picture. Delivery is free worldwide, duties and taxes included.