A great rug can impart warmth to a chilly room and act as a focal point for the rest of the your decorating scheme. Like the perfect partygoer, it can combine being the life and soul with bringing out the best in its fellow guests. The secret is to steer clear of the overbearing, room-dominating It-rugs (oversized Union Jacks are out) and explore the latest collections, which feature soft-spoken, subtle geometric patterns in sumptuous cut piles, felts and exotic fibres.

The best of the new geometrics are by Suzanne Sharp, whose delicate, small-scale interlocking motifs came to her after visiting baroque churches in Sicily. She glanced foot-ward and had a eureka moment. “The marble floors were such wonderful patterns, but on a vast scale. I dismantled the designs and reused them in rugs,” she says. Six months ago, the range took to the floor to become instant hits at her firm, The Rug Company (from £425 per square metre; 020 7229 5148). Can she explain their popularity? “Those small geometrics are easy to decorate with and very relaxed.”

Another brand that specialises in serene, easy-to-live-with graphics is Forty Thieves. Lisa O’Connor, a painter herself, set up the firm to commission British artists to design contemporary rugs at reasonable prices. Highlights include Duncan Bullen’s Peaceful Abstracts: simple, symmetrical shapes in subtle colours. Each rug is made to order,and prices start at £250 per square metre(0845 652 5650, www.fortythieves.co.uk ).

Many makers are experimenting to produce rugs as interesting to the touch as they are to the eye. The Rug Company has been toying with mixing cashmere and pashmina with Tibetan wool. Roger Oates produces rugs made from the softest felted wool in his Tapis collection (from £384). Esti Barnes produces sculpted-pile pieces. Her award-winning Esquire features a textured pattern crossing the rug like a mountain range across a map (£2,117 for a 140cm x 270cm rug; 020 7795 3333, www.topfloorrugs.com ). And the textile artist Margo Selby (see far right) is next month launching a range in banana silk.

The real joy of rugs is that excellence in design needn’t break the bank. This autumn, Habitat is launching ingenious sets of three black-and-white hand-tufted designs by Paola Navone, each trio to be Velcroed together to form a composition that pleases the owner (£199), and a hand-spun jute piece by David Adjaye (£399; 0844 499 1111, www.habitat.net). Roger Oates has a permanent clearance area on his website, refreshed fortnightly, with remnants, samples and surplus stock. Cotton Kobe runners measuring 70cm x 200cm are presently down from £69.95 to £29.50.

Some web-based operations special-ise in keeping costs low, while maximising choice and quality. The Natural Rug Store (0845 076 0086) offers runners and rugs in sisal, seagrass, jute, coir, bamboo, paper and wool, with prices from £83. Using its Rug Builder facility, you can tailor your own carpet, specifying dimensions and colours, and choosing from a wealth of borders and piping, including rather impractical-looking pink suede. If you are concerned that inexpensive equals unethical, note that the firm’s materials are all from renewable resources, such as commercially grown seagrass.

If green is your favourite colour, check out Debbie Siniska’s website. She elevates ethical furnishings to an art form with her reclaimed rag rugs. The charity shops of Tunbridge Wells provide her raw materials: secondhand sweat-shirts, T-shirts, fleeces and blankets. She pulls the rags through a peanut-sacking base, to create compositions drawn from the natural world. Mats in the shape of a single oak leaf, with a palette ranging from pinks to pale blues, browns and greens, cost £400. Other styles start at £150.

And the very latest thing? Magic carpets, of course. Designer Luke Irwin’s new piece of wizardry, to be unveiled at the interior design show Decorex next month, is a sunlit pool of darting fish that seem to alternately appear and disappear. The illusion is achieved with a skilful mix of silk and wool. “You can walk into a room and see a plain carpet, but, as you sit down with your drink, you find fish swimming around your feet,” he says. The rugs will cost from £300 per square metre (01725 553000, www.lukeirwin.com ).

Kid's Corner £300

A baaa-rgain from the web-based firm Arte Espina: this sheep is part of the company’s colourful children’s collection. The rug shown is 130cm x 130cm, but it can be produced in other sizes – special orders take 12-16 weeks. Supremely practical for kids, Arte Espina’s rugs are made from Espirelle, an acrylic yarn that is extremely resilient, more hard-wearing than wool and easy to clean – most sticky-finger stains can be shifted with water alone.

Arte Espina; 0845 071 9456

Circle lines £380

Margo Selby, an award-winning textile artist, creates rugs in geometric patterns, with raised discs of many colours, inspired by the texture of bubble wrap. Though her bespoke rugs are pricey, she has designed a cheaper spin-off for Habitat. The hand-tufted wool Bloomsbury rug (200cm x 300cm) will be launched next spring.

If you can’t wait until then and are feeling flush, on September 16, Selby is launching her new range made from banana-silk, the luxurious yarn from the fibre of the banana tree. She is unveiling the collection at her studio as part of the London Design Festival. The hand-knotted wool, silk and banana-fibre creations will cost £450 per square metre.

Habitat : 0844 499 1111, www.margoselby.com

Softly softly £440

Sumptuously soft underfoot, Roger Oates’s autumn collection of Tapis rugs come in a palette of neutral, earthy and vibrant colours. The modular designs of stripes and rectangles in felted brushed wool come in a variety of sizes, and are joined and edged with a blanket-stitch detail. This striking Stripes & Boxes design measures 140cm x 200cm. 01531 632718, www.rogeroates.com

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