Arabesque Gold Award winning design for 2011

Arabesque Gold is hand made by Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu, Nepal and is unique in using traditional centuries-old techniques.  This is a 100 knot rug made with Tibetan wool and comes with silk accents.

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!

Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section above

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 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!

Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section above

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

Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section above

Oceania - Modern Nature Design

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

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

 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.

 Machine-Spun vs. Hand-Spun Yarn

 The primary difference between machine-spun vs. hand-spun yarn is that machine-spun yarn is much more uniform in thickness.  While on the surface this sounds good, in fact, the inherent variability of hand-spun wool creates a much more valuable product.  There are several reasons for this:

• Hand-spinning produces a looser yarn that exposes more of the surface to the dye and creates a better knot.
• Because of the variability of hand-spun wool, when is dyed it absorbs more dye where it is looser and less dye where it is tighter.  This creates more variegation in the colors, resulting in more depth of color and the prized “abrash” effect in the finished product.
• Hand-spinning is less abrasive to the wool than machine spinning and produces a more resilient and stronger yarn that lasts longer and wears better.
• Rugs created with hand-spun wool have a distinct pile direction which creates different colors depending on the light.  This effect is not nearly as distinguishable in rugs made of machine-spun yarns.

 We’d better stop there – that’s a short blog on a very long and laborious process!

See Foundation part 1 of 5
See Knots part 2 of 5
See Dyes part 3 of 5

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

Desert Sunset – new design for 2010

Tibet Rug Company announces a new rug design for 2010 – Desert Sunset (80 knot count).   ]]> http://1000sofrugs.com/Oriental-Rugs/2010/04/tibet-rug-company-desert-sunset/feed/ 0 http://1000sofrugs.com/Oriental-Rugs/2010/04/custom-lobby-rug/ http://1000sofrugs.com/Oriental-Rugs/2010/04/custom-lobby-rug/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:37:28 +0000 admin http://1000sofrugs.com/Oriental-Rugs/?p=234

Custom Lobby Rug

This custom rug was created for the Marriott lobby in Bangalore, India. The lobby rug was to be a 116′ x 16′ piece that was to be inset in the lobby of the hotel. We would have had to make the rug in 3 pieces and then put them together. For the design, we were given images of the hotel decor and asked to design something based on elements such as the wall paper, light fixtures, etc. We came up with the design (picture of 3’x 3’ sample) and the designers absolutely loved it. The design includes 4 wool colors and 16 silk colors. 

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

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?

Natural Dyes

As you would expect, natural dyes were the dyes used in the first rugs thousands of years ago, and continue to be widely used today.  These dyes are all produced from nature – some colors from different plant material and some colors from insects!  In historical times (and in nomadic tribes today), each group used its local indigenous materials in dyeing their yarns, so it was often possible to tell a rug’s origin by both the tribal pattern, and the predominant color palette. 

To prepare natural dyes, you must gather the natural materials (plant or insect), dry it, grind it, and seep it.  The yarn is prepared by first dipping it in a hot mix of alum or iron which prepares the wool to bond with the dye, and then the wool is cooked in vats of hot dye.  The temperature, time, and number of different cooking periods depend on the color and shade desired.  This is a very manual and time intensive process, and is why natural dyes are more costly than synthetic dyes.

Despite the higher cost, there is a reason rugs made with natural dyes are generally more valuable – it is actually hard to make natural colors look bad!  With a skilled dyer, this process produces gorgeous colors with a lot of depth and character.   Because you often have to use several different primary colors to produce the color you want (yellow and blue to make green for example), the resulting yarn will have a variegated color that shows specs of all of the colors used.  In addition, natural dyes tend to be made in smaller vats leading to several different batches of yarn color that are not identical.  Over time, these variations tend to show up more – one of the reasons antique rugs generally increase in value! 

Natural dyes stable over time.  You will find rugs in museum collections with vibrant rugs that are several hundred years old. 

Synthetic Dyes

Synthetic dyes have a troubled history.  The first synthetic dyes were aniline dyes introduced in the 1860s.  These were horrible dyes that were extremely cheap and so were widely used to increase the production of rugs for export.  These dyes bled, faded, and were very harsh to the eye.   This ruined the reputation of hand knotted rugs, and aniline dyes were eventually banned in Persia (modern day Iran).  Tradition has it that if anyone was found using aniline dyes the penalty was to cut off their right hand!  These dyes are not used in quality rugs today – although some people still refer to all synthetic dyes as “aniline”.

Modern synthetic dyes are made of potassium bichromate (generally just called “chrome”) and thankfully for the tradition of hand knotted rugs, they are very good.  They are easy to use, and produce a huge range of consistent colors that age extremely well.  It is generally impossible for the non-expert to tell the difference between natural dyes and chrome dyes.  The primary difference is that over time, the rug with natural dyes will develop more variegated color, while the rug with chrome dyes will maintain its more uniform color.  This is an issue for those in the antique business, but generally not an issue for those who are using the rug in their home.

Well, that’s a very brief summary on the dyes!  Next time we will cover another aspect of the construction of hand knotted rugs!

See Foundation part 1 of 5
See Knots part 2 of 5
See Wool part 4 of 5

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

 Child labor is a subject sure to carry a lot of emotion.  We do not pretend to have all the answers to this age-old problem, but would like to share some of our thoughts and experiences.

First, some black and white facts:

 Fact:  many situations are inherently bad.  Anything involving abduction, slavery, forced removal of children from their parents, sexual exploitation, or indentured servitude is just evil. 

 Fact:  About one-fifth of the world’s 6 billion people live in abject, absolute poverty.  It is hard for us to comprehend the grinding poverty and helplessness that leads parents to put their children to work in horrible conditions, but the reality is these families rely upon child labor in order to just survive the day.  A few years ago, we were travelling by bicycle through Bhutan and rode by a group Indian families working on the sides of the roads.  By “working”, I mean every member of the family was breaking down rocks into smaller rocks for road gravel.  Children barely able to walk sat next to their parents; clutching “hammers” (larger rocks) pounding the ground.  What haunts me the most is not the children’s lifeless eyes and gaunt features, but the complete silence as they sat pounding away.  Having just come from visiting a Bhutanese school where the sounds were of healthy children laughing and chattering, the difference was startling.  We eventually rode by their collection of shacks that you wouldn’t use to house your farm animals.  One can’t imagine a worse environment for a child to grow up – knowing that this was as good as it got – you had to work to stay alive, but that’s all you could hope for.

 Fact:  child labor is still a problem in many rug producing countries.  The exact number is impossible to find, but this is an industry with a long history of child labor issues.

 Now, for the grey areas:

 We were travelling through Egypt a while back and visited a rug weaving center (as tourists, not buyers).  What we saw were healthy looking school aged girls, sitting at a loom chattering away with each other.  Aside from the loom, they could have been children anywhere – their book bags were piled against a wall and they giggled as we mangled hello in Arabic.  We were suspicious of the explanation that they only worked for a few hours after school, but when we unexpectedly drove by a couple hours later, we saw them walking down the street towards the village with their book bags, like a gaggle of girls in any US town.  This wasn’t “child labor” as I thought of it and as we witnessed in Bhutan.  If their labor brought in enough money so their parents could send them to school and hope for the future, was this wrong? 

 While it’s easy for us in the West to state that child labor is an absolute wrong, it is arrogant to make such statements without at least gaining some appreciation of what we are talking about.  Child labor is an easy rallying cry for politicians trying to make a name for themselves or NGOs trying to raise funds.  These politicians and social activists often call for the banning of products from countries accused of propagating child labor.  All this does is hurt the very people they are allegedly trying to help by increasing poverty – which ultimately is root of child labor.

 There have been many examples of well intentioned, but poorly thought through “solutions”.  One well known example is a factory in China that was shut down due to Western pressure having been repeatedly found to have illegally employed children.  The Western politicians and NGOs cheered.  A year later, a visitor discovered what happened to the children who had been employed at the now closed factory – they were now thieves, beggars, or prostitutes – a large percentage of them having since contracted AIDS. 

 This is why we must take the time to be thoughtful and look at why child labor occurs, how to address the root causes, understand the cultural differences, and take lessons from our own sordid history with child labor. 

 Laws against child labor without addressing the underpinning root cause of poverty do not work.  Let’s look at our own history.  Child labor was rife in the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s with children working day and night in mines, factories, and farms.  While various child labor laws were passed during this time, it wasn’t really eradicated until the full impacts of the rising standard of living from the Industrial Revolution were felt – meaning families no longer depended on their children’s income making it more feasible for people to become more educated.  Even today, we look the other way to blatant violations of child labor laws as the children of migrant workers sweat in our fields to pick the produce we put on our table.

 Our history is being played out around the world today.  In India, according to government data, more than 12 million children under age 14 are working as domestic servants, in stone quarries, sewing factories, mines, or other industries.  A 1986 ban on children working in “hazardous” jobs and a recent 2006 law banning employment of children in homes and in the hospitality industry, had has no impact.  Since the 2006 law was put into effect, there has not been a single conviction of a violation.  Why?  It’s simple, people will continue to do what they need to do to survive, and the law has had not changed the underlying poverty and poor education that led them to indenture their children in the first place.

 The only realistic solution is a three pronged approach – improved economics, improved access to education, and increased regulation.  Any of these factors alone is not sufficient – (for example, education only works if there are jobs available for educated people).

 Improving the economics of third world countries is something the smartest people in the world have been working on for a long time!  We have seen too many examples of failed policies (indiscriminate funding of NGOs, supporting of corrupt military leaders, etc, etc), and precious few examples of policies that actually work.  But successful examples are there and we must learn from them.   Only then, can well meaning regulations and laws have the impact they are meant to.

 The final prong is education.  Access to education is something that many people are involved with.  We are proud to be a member of CARE & FAIR – an industry organization that is not waiting for the governments to act, but is providing education for children of rug-knotting families.  In addition, we are involved with a number of dedicated carpet weaving centers for displaced Tibetan refugees that are built around the foundation of educating both children and adults while creating crafts that can economically support these activities.  These organizations are built around the principle that “wherever the social situation has improved and children have had a school they could attend, child labor has disappeared.”  (TERRE DES HOMMES)

Care and Fair