The Tradition Of Hand Woven Oriental Rugs

Firstly the wool is carded, washed and spun. In the villages of Anatolia - in Central Turkey - and Iran, women can often be seen in the street, spinning by hand. The particular characteristics of the wool sheared from local sheep is often a subtle feature of the rug in terms of its texture and feel and nomadic carpets are often woven from wool taken from sheep bred by the weavers themselves. Whilst the vast majority of rugs are made from wool, certain more expensive pieces are woven from fine silk.
 

Once the wool has been spun into yarn, it is dyed and prepared for weaving. The enormous spectrum of colour in oriental rugs is one of their most attractive and fascinating features of an oriental rug, so one can imagine what an enormously time consuming and complex process it is to produce such a range of coloured yarns. Traditionally, wool was coloured using vegetable dyes. However, these dyestuffs tend to produce a more subtle effect and for many generations the norm has been to use analine dyes which offer better fastness and more vibrant colours. Modern high-grade dyes will retain their basic colour but mellow with age.
 

However, certain regional designs such as Konya and Shirvan in Turkey, still use a high percentage of vegetable dyestuff, but since this adds considerable time and effort to the overall process, it can result in a relatively higher price.

Carpet weaving is often done by women but by no means exclusively so. At Oriental Rugs of Bath, we stock carpets from a range of sources including nomadic tribal pieces, but the majority are made in village workshops, where high standards of manufacture and reasonable working conditions are maintained.
 

Designs are, in the main, variations on highly traditional patterns and this is skilled, time consuming work which demands a lot of care. The loom is set up with a set of warps - the longitudonal strands of yarn to which the tufts are knotted. Each tuft is attached to the warp through knotting it by hand.

There are different techniques of knotting employed in the East ranging from the Turkish and Persian knot to the Jufti, of which several variants are used.
 

The basic difference is between the single knot, as used by the Turkoman weavers of Central Asia, with wefts of equal weight and tension, producing little or no ribbing on the back of the piece, and the double weft, which produces a more durable but heavier ridged construction. The Jufti knot involves tying one knot on four warp strings as opposed to two. This system, which is widely used in India results in a faster rate of manufacture but a lower quality rug.

When a carpet has been woven and removed from the loom, it has a somewhat raw and crude appearance. In order to give it a good sheen, it needs to be washed. This also removes loose hairs, settles the lie of the pile and helps give the rugs its natural lustre. Furthermore, it removes excess dye and assists in defining the appearance of the design. Washing demands a lot of experience and technique and is a vital part of the process in achieving a quality result that will do credit to the care and craftsmanship employed in the manufacture of an oriental rug.