Nearly Four Metres of Plum
Longer than the room she wove it in,
longer than the winter it was for.
Plum on plum, knot after knot,
until the loom ran out.
A rug this long is a decision. At nearly four metres it could not have been woven for a small house; it was made for the great room where the whole family and the neighbours' family sat along the walls on winter nights, knees touching, glasses of tea going round. The loom would have been set up against the longest wall and she would have worked at it for most of a season, the plum-coloured wool rising inch by inch, the lattice repeating itself with the small variations that tell you a hand did this and not a machine.
The colour has aged the way good plums do, deeper at the centre, lighter where the light has sat on it. The pile is a full two centimetres and takes a footstep without complaint. Now it belongs in a long room again: a loft with the sofas facing each other, or a hallway wide enough to be a room in its own right.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.