Oriental and Tibetan Rugs

Safavieh - Old World (GOLD / GREEN)

While the term “Oriental Rugs” is used rather loosely, technically, oriental rugs are hand-knotted or hand-woven rugs produced in the Near East (such as Turkey), Middle East (such as Pakistan and Iran), or Far East (such as India, China and Tibet) with traditional designs.  Rugs or carpets made by machine, by hand-tufting, or by any method other than hand-knotting or hand-weaving are not true oriental rugs.

Oriental rugs are often organized by origin.  The terms Persian rugs, Chinese rugs, Tibetan rugs, and Kurdish rugs are all specifications that fall under a broad classification of oriental rugs.

Although historians have not been able to pinpoint exactly when the first oriental rugs were made, hand-knotted rugs have probably been around since human civilization began.  Man first began using animal furs as clothing and flooring, but as animals became domesticated and farming increased, the use of sheared wool and silk became mediums for weaving.

Oriental carpet weaving as an art form has been traced back to at least the 5^th century BC.  The oldest known oriental rug was discovered in a Chieftain burial chamber in Siberia, near the outer Mongolian border.  The 2,500-year-old hand knotted rug was in remarkably good condition with a symmetrical knot motif – still used in rugs today.  You can see the rug in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The first oriental rugs were not just used to cover the floor – they would have also been used to cover seating, as wall hangings, and as ceilings in nomadic tents.   Throughout history, Oriental rugs have traveled the ancient Silk Road as the materials and their designs migrated around the ancient world.  The Romans were known to have adorned their homes with oriental rugs and often used them to pay their taxes, Marco Polo wrote about the oriental rugs he discovered in his journeys through Turkey and China in the 13^th century, and oriental rugs are described in Solomon’s palace in the Old Testament.

Today, while there a great number of factories producing low quality cheap rugs to capitalize on our fascination with oriental rugs, there are also traditions of carpet weaving that still endure, with wool still being spun by local people from local sheep and some dyes still being made from plants.  Long may it be so!

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Gingko Border Wheat

While the term “Arts and Crafts” can be used for a broad variety of topics, we are using it to describe the decorative design and style that began as a movement in England during the late Victorian period.  At that time, the industrial revolution led to mass-market products produced with by machine with man-made materials.  Unhappiness with this trend led to an increased value placed on handcraftsmanship, truth to natural materials, and simple folk styles of decoration.

This movement migrated from England to the rest of Europe, and across the pond to the United States.  In the US, this style was take up by American designers – most notably Gustav Stickley – and further developed to reflect natural materials and rectilinear designs (also known as the Mission style).  While the English movement continued to stress individual hand-crafted exquisite pieces that could be afforded only by the very wealthy, in the US, the movement migrated to aesthetic mass-produced pieces targeted to the middle-class. 

 No discussion about Arts and Crafts movement can be complete without a mention of Frank Lloyd Wright.  Wright took the Arts and Crafts movement to a new level and ushered in a style of architecture characterized by “organic” architecture that reflected the nature around it. 

Arts and Crafts designs continue to be popular to current times.  The marriage of Arts and Crafts designs with hand-knotted rugs is a natural fit.  Rugs made with organic cotton, natural wool, and silk – produced 100% by hand – truly reflect the values of the original Arts and Crafts ideals.  Today, there are several weaving centers in Tibet dedicated to keeping alive the Arts and Crafts design tradition!

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This is the last blog on the construction of hand-knotted rugs and focuses on the looms.

Looms vary quite a bit in size and sophistication, but the essential components are always the same. The most basic loom contains a frame which holds the warp strings and a heddle – or shedding device that allows the weaver to pass wefts through the warp strings.

Vertical Loom

There are 2 primary types of looms – horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal looms are the simplest form of loom and are staked to the ground. The weaver ties the knots from a sitting position, looking down onto the rug. These looms are primarily used by nomadic people since they can be disassembled and transported easily – however these looms can only produce small rugs of lesser quality.

Vertical looms like the one pictured above are much more comfortable for the weaver as they can sit in front and work at eye level. These are the most common looms used in weaving centers around the world, although there are countless variations! There is essentially no restriction on the size of the rug that can be produced on a vertical loom – rollers can be used on the top or bottom to produce any length, and the width just depends on how large you want to make your loom.

In addition to the loom, a weaver also needs a number of essential tools – a knife for cutting the yarn as the knots are tied, a comb for packing down the wefts and each row of knots to tighten the weave, and shears for trimming the pile once several rows are complete.

Loom Tools

And that’s a quick review of rug loom basics!

See Foundation part 1 of 5
See Knots part 2 of 5
See Dyes part 3 fo 5
See Wool part 4 of 5

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Oceania - Modern Nature Design

Modern Nature Designs makes beautiful hand knotted wool and silk rugs. 

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Welcome to the 4th part in our series on the construction of hand-knotted rugs!  Today’s blog will focus on preparing the wool for dying and knotting.

 Sheep Shearing, Wool Sorting and Washing

Shearing Wool

 We won’t spend a lot of time talking about the first 3 steps since they are pretty much the same whether you are gathering wool for making rugs, or the thousands of other uses wool has in our society!  Basically, the sheep gets a “haircut”, the wool is sorted based on quality, and then all the dirt (and stones and sticks) is washed out of the wool.  Washing the wool is a pretty important step because you have to be careful to wash some of the natural oils (lanolin) out, but not too much.  If you leave too much oil in the wool, the wool will repel the dye, but you can’t take too much oil out because you need enough lanolin to make the wool easy to handle and to produce a higher quality thread.

 Carding the Wool

Carding Wool

 Carding is the process of combing the wool to align the fibers.  For the highest quality wool, this is done by hand between 2 combs.  To keep labor expenses down, this process is often done by machine – but be aware that this produces an inferior product because a machine pulls the fibers more strongly, weakening the fibers.

 Spinning the Wool into Yarn

Spinning Wool

Now here’s where the real skill comes into play!  While the majority of wool is spun by machine (more on that below), we will focus on the process of hand spinning.  There are two basic types of spindles; the top (or high) whorl spindle which originated in the Middle East, and the bottom (or low) whorl spindle which is used in Europe and the US. 

Both types of spindles require a very experienced and skilled spinner to pull a few wool fibers and twist them into yarn – constantly batching in more fibers as the yarn is created. read more »

In the previous blogs in this series on Hand Knotted Rug Construction, we reviewed the foundation and the knots.  Today’s topic is the dyes used to produce such intricate and beautiful patterns in hand knotted rugs.

There are many rug experts who are trained to be able to differentiate types of dyes – both with their “expert eye”, and through chemical analysis.  This article is not intended to turn you into an expert, but to just share some basic information about dyes.

First, there are 2 primary types of dyes. 

• Natural – also called vegetable or vegetal
• Synthetic – also referred to as aniline or chrome

There is a widespread belief that natural dyes are always superior to synthetic dyes.  While it’s true that a quality antique hand knotted rug made with natural dyes is generally more valuable than one made with synthetic dyes, there are many more factors to take into account when valuing hand knotted rugs.  For most people, the key questions you need to take into account when purchasing a rug is:  are the colors pleasing to your eye and harmonious, or are they harsh and artificial?  Will the colors develop more character and depth as they age, or will they fade or run noticeably? read more »

Chinese Rug ( Peonies & Butterflies)

The long and fascinating history hand knotted rugs has its roots in five countries; China, Egypt, India and Persia (now Iran).  Known collectively as Oriental rugs, their interest and value has continued for several centuries.

 China has a long tradition of weaving rugs – the first Chinese rugs originated in the north-west of the country in the area around Xinjiang.  About the time of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD) the technique of rug making spread along the Silk Route extending from Qinghai, Gansu, Nigxia, Shenmu and Yulin to Inner Mongolia and Shanxi. Rug weaving later extended into other locations such as Peking (now Beijing), Tianjing, Hebei and Shandong, where their own distinctive styles evolved.

 However, the art of knotting rugs as we traditionally think of Oriental rugs was not introduced until around the 15th and 17th century – but once this technique was introduced, it became the new standard.

 Traditional Chinese hand knotted rugs were normally made from wool but northern nomads would also use goat and camel hair.  Early on, Chinese weavers found that silk had special qualities that gave nuances of color as the light source changed.

The patterns in classic Chinese rugs are often taken from the patterns of the porcelain painters and from silks, and the designs typically followed other established art forms.  These are typically Buddhist and Taoist symbols including the lotus flower, clouds, dragons, phoenix, elephants, horses, and bats.  (The bat shares its name with the Chinese word for luck and is a popular symbol of good fortune.)  These designs are largely symbolic rather than purely decorative and the traditional colors include black, blue, red, white, beige and yellow.

 In the 1980’s the Oriental market was in a state of decline in China as well as the rest of the world as aniline dyes, machine-spun wool, and poor quality dominated the market.  At that time, a group of men sparked a “renaissance” in the modern rug market by returning to the traditional labor intensive method of rug making using vegetable or high quality chrome dyes and superior hand spun wools and silks. 

 China was involved with this renaissance and several weaving centers were opened up in China dedicated to producing high quality hand knotted rugs.  The patterns on these rugs can vary with the weavers producing both traditional classic Chinese patterns in traditional colors, and also branching out in to new designs suited to modern tastes.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section above.

In the first blog in this series on Hand Knotted Rug Construction, we reviewed the foundation – the warp and the weft.  Today’s topic will cover the key visual element that makes hand-knotted rugs what they are – the knots themselves.

Knot Type

There are several different methods of creating knots, some particular to a region or tribe.  Different people have different preferences, we would not say that one particular knot is inherently “better” than another type of knot; it’s really a matter of preference and tradition!  The two predominant types of knots are Asymmetrical Knot and Symmetrical Knot. read more »

To help with all the different rug terms we have put together a glossary of terms.  Please feel free to add more terms by sending an e-mail to blogterms@1000sofrugs.com.

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