Silk on Silk

Earlier this year, my mother-in-law and I took a 10 day trip to India together (she was on business, I was her India-savvy travel companion.) Whilst there, I got to experience one of the more divine sensual pleasures - the feeling of a silk on silk Persian carpet.

My obsession with Persian rugs can be traced directly to my mother, who loves fine things, handmade things, beautiful things. To my mind there is little so indulgent as walking on a piece of art that took months of tedious hand-labor to create.

It was in this spirit that I said to my darling Siggy last spring, 'Darling, perhaps we can get a Persian rug at some point.' Sig responded with something like - 'But darling, we're planning on being academics and having a lot of children. I just don't think Persian carpets are in our future.' And so, it seemed, the matter was settled.

Until, that is, a series of serendipitous events brought us not one, but two lovely hand-knotted carpets from the vast, mysterious warehouses of the universe. The first rug was a wedding gift from our friend Garrett Lisi (the surfer physicist, this name deserves a googling if you haven't heard of him.) And then, about a month later, I brought home a $200 craigslist Persian carpet pictured here, sold by a barely-literate SoCal dude - 'uh, yeah, my mom, like, bought this rug in Afganistan or something. I dunno. I'm selling it to buy drugs."

Our rugs are both made with a wool warp (the foundation of the rug) and wool knots. They have knot densities of approximately 100 KPSI (knots per square inch.) Not bad. This means that for each square inch of carpet some fellow tied 100 pieces of yarn onto the strings of the warp, batted them down, cut them to the right length etc. etc. This is not a feat to be scoffed at. A 6'x8' carpet of this quality will take at least a few months to complete.

But in India, oh, in India.

After seeing the Taj Mahal - perhaps the most iconic representation of extravagance and luxury in the world - we allowed ourselves to be taken to a shop where we could see rugs actually being knotted, and then try our best not to buy one while plied with marsala chai and surrounded by fellows unrolling gorgeous carpets all around us.

They started with the wool on wool carpets, quite fine ones. And then, at some point, brought out the silk on wool carpets - these carpets have a wool warp knotted with silk thread. When you touch such a carpet, you think something along the lines of, "oh, I have never felt anything quite so soft in my life." Their density bumps up to about 500 KPSI, 500 hand tied knots for every inch of carpet.

And then, once we'd drunk quite a lot of lovely spiced chai, they brought out the silk on silk rugs, silk warp, silk knots, which range from something like 900 to 2400 KPSI. We were invited to touch them, and did, at which point I thought something along the lines of, 'how could I ever have thought those other carpets were soft? how could I ever have thought anything else in the world was soft?' It was the touch equivalent of foie gras, or perhaps Marilyn Monroe, or the Queen of the Night Opera as sung by Diana Damrau (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuKxL4LOqc) though slightly less forceful.

We'll have to be rather successful academics to get one of these, I'm afraid. But if we ever do, I intend to put it in a secret place and walk on it every day.