Here is everything you need to know before you start sifting through the thousands of handmade Oriental rugs:
Size
Size and shape should be considered, depending on your taste, furniture, and space. Are you going to use a palace-sized rug for the centerpiece of a large room, or do you need a few small rugs for fun accents around the house? Runners look great in hallways, while round, oval, and square rugs might be best suited for your office space. Rectangular rugs are by far the most common shape and more widely available.
Colors
In handmade rugs, colorful motifs are woven into the rug against the solid color in the background and the border, creating even more incredible color contrast. All handmade rugs are identified by their background color and border color.
Everyone sees color in slightly different ways. You'll find that the color of your rug seems to vary over the course of the day, as natural lighting has a magical effect on the materials of high quality rugs. You will be amazed when some subtle colors in a complex design are enhanced by the color of your walls, furniture, or floors. It's a good idea to try a rug in your home for a few days, or weeks before you decide to keep it.
Style
Style could be defined as the way different motifs, colors and patterns give character to a rug. In this section, we will discuss the most important styles of rugs that have existed or still do exist in various parts of the world. Rug styles of the world include Persian, Chinese, Turkoman, Caucasian, European, Anatolian, Tibetan, Indian, Baluchi, North African, Native American, and East Turkestan. In addition, many of these styles have sub-styles; for example, Tabriz is a sub-style of Persian style. Oher examples here:
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Serab |
Mudjur |
Shumaka |
(Persian) |
(Anatolian) |
(Caucasian) |
Layout
Layout is the overall arrangement of motifs or objects woven into a rug. Motif is any single form or interrelated group of forms which make up part of the overall design. All rugs can be divided into three major layouts of medallion, all-over, or prayer as shown here:
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Medallion |
All-Over |
Prayer |
Pattern
Pattern is divided into the three categories of curvilinear, geometric, and pictorial. The first two refer to rugs with conventional motifs that are woven with curving lines (curvilinear) or straight lines (geometric). The third (a much smaller group) refers to rugs that portray people and/or animals.
Basic Principles of Rug Weaving
Materials
Wool is the most frequently used pile material in handmade rugs because it is soft, durable, easy to work with and not too expensive. This combination of characteristics is not found in other natural fibers. Other materials could be silk, cotton, linen, hemp, and jute.
The Loom
A loom is a device for weaving thread or yarn into textiles. Looms can range from very small hand-held frames, to large free-standing hand looms, to huge automatic mechanical devices.
The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.
The Foundation
The foundation is comprised of the warp and weft as shown here:
In weaving, the warp is the set of lengthwise yarns through which the weft is woven. Each individual warp thread in a fabric is called a warp end. Warp means "that which is thrown across" (Old English wearp, from weorpan, to throw, cf. German werfen, Dutch werpen).
When weaving with a loom, the warp yarns are fully attached before weaving begins.
Warp is spun fibre. The spin of the fiber can be in either an "s" twist or a "z" twist. These twist directions make yarn that is similar to hands; each the reverse of the other. Initially the fibre would have been wool or flax (which is known as linen when spun). These fibres provided a strong enough thread to be held under tension as the warp. With the improvements in spinning technology during the Industrial Revolution, it became possible to make cotton yarn of sufficient strength to be used as the warp. Later, artificial or man-made fibres such as nylon or rayon were employed. The weft is the yarn that is woven back and forth through the warp to make cloth.
In weaving, weft or woof is the yarn which is drawn under and over parallel warp yarns to create a fabric. In North America, it is sometimes referred to as the "fill" or the "filling yarn", and in India, it is referred to as "baana", which is derived from another hindi word "bun na" or "bunai" which means making with threads or strings, as is done in cane weaving and other forms of primitive weaving techniques.
The weft is a thread or yarn of spun fibre. The original fibre was wool, flax or cotton. Nowadays, many synthetic fibers are used in weaving. Because the weft does not have to be stretched in the way that the warp is, it can generally be less strong.
The weft is threaded through the warp using a shuttle. Hand looms were the original weaver's tool, with the shuttle being threaded through alternately raised warps by hand.
The Pile
The pile is formed from various types of knot styles. A rug can consist of 25 to over 1,000 knots per square inch.
Two basic knots are used in most Persian Carpets and Oriental rugs: the symmetrical Turkish or Ghiordes knot (used in Turkey, the Caucasus, East Turkmenistan, and some Turkish and Kurdish areas of Iran), and the asymmetrical Persian or Senneh knot (Iran, India, Turkey, Pakistan, China, and Egypt).
To make a Turkish knot, the yarn is passed between two adjacent warps, brought back under one, wrapped around both forming a collar, then pulled through the center so that both ends emerge between the warps.
The Persian knot is used for finer rugs. The yarn is wrapped around only one warp, then passed behind the adjacent warp so that it divides the two ends of the yarn. The Persian knot may open on the left or the right, and rugs woven with this knot are generally more accurate and symmetrical.
Other knots include the Spanish knot looped around single alternate warps so the ends are brought out on either side and the Jufti knot which is tied around four warps instead
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Asymmetrical |
Symmetrical |
Persian or Senneh knot |
Turkish or Ghiordes knot |
Summary
No furnishing or decor can match the value, functionality, durability, and beauty that fine handmade rugs give their owners. A good handmade rug will last for generations, age beautifully, appreciate over time, become an heirloom, be a magnificent combination of function, beauty and value. They are true works of art that you live on- it is what one can say: "Walk on art". |
