Making the Rug
The handmade Oriental rug is an ancient art form that bridges time and culture. Hand-knotted rugs can be found in Iran, India, China, Pakistan, Turkey, Nepal, Tibet, Afghanistan, Egypt, Romania, Russia, Armenia and the Caucasus. From the 2,500-year-old Pazyrk rug that was discovered frozen in a Siberian burial site to contemporary Gabbehs, the Oriental rug represents centuries of exquisite artistry and meticulous craftsmanship.
A superior quality handmade rug cannot be made in a sweatshop, as the quality can only come from a master craftsman with a vast depth of weaving knowledge. Some master weavers use a rug script that dictates different traditional rug designs, but many weave from the collective memory of their ancestors.Every part of the rug making process is an art, from the care of the sheep to the final stage of washing the finished carpet.
After the finest wool is sheared from the sheep, it’s washed to free it of lanolin and carded to straighten the wool before it’s spun. Next, the wool is dyed in boiling vats by a dye master and hung to dry. The finest quality rugs have the most consistent color, with only subtle variation in the abrash due to how evenly the yarn-bundles were penetrated by the dye.
When starting a new rug, the weavers re-record a rich history, adding new thoughts and innovations to the thousands of knots that make up the whole. One rug may take months, if not years, to complete on a wooden loom. Warp threads, usually made of cotton or wool yarns (and silk in special cases), are tightly stretched along the length of the loom. In a pile rug, pieces of different colored yarn are deftly knotted around each pair of warp threads. As each row is completed, the weft threads are inserted across the width of the loom, beaten with a metal comb and a new row is begun. The weft and warp make up the hidden foundation of the rug, while the knotted pile creates the plush design. When the weaving process is finished, the carpet must be trimmed, giving the surface of the rug an even appearance. The warp is also cut and finished, using one of a number of styles of fringe design. The rug is then washed in the country of origin, most often in a stream or lake, before it is shipped to the Western market. The rug is also sheared one last time before it is sold.
The average master weaver can tie between ten and fourteen thousand knots (knots are typically Turkish or Persian) in one day, amounting to approximately one to two inches of woven carpet between several weavers working together. It may take two weavers five to six months to finish an 8x10 rug with a knot count of 250 knots per square inch.