The Art of Rug-Making

Materials

The materials in Oriental rugs are mainly wool or silk knotted onto a cotton foundation. Wool is a critical element in the quality of an Oriental rug. Wool for rugs is classified into three categories: live wool, dead wool and used wool. Live wool is wool sheared form living sheep. Dead wool is removed from sheep hides chemically. Used wool is recycled from old cloth, readied, and used in low grade rugs. You can easily discern the difference of quality in wool by sight and touch.

Good, live wool is durable, soft and pliable; it retains its lanolin and essential oils giving the rug resilience and an inherent stain-resistant quality. Good wool also captures the light and diffuses it among its fibers. Intensive use of a good wool carpet over the course of time gradually polishes the wool, and the natural oils come to the surface lending a wonderful sheen. In fact an older rug sometimes looks as though it is made of silk instead of wool.

Dead wool is taken from slaughtered animals by chemicals and is dry, brittle and abrasive. Since dry wool doesn't take the dyes as well, the colors are often cloudy and light is reflected off the surface of the wool leaving a dull effect. Rugs made of this wool often shed which may irritate allergies. Such rugs do not wear well and have no resilience. They also stain more easily because there are no natural oils to protect the fibers.

Sheep to Wool

Raw wool must be spun into strands of yarn and bundled into skeins then sent off for dyeing - typically, one woman will be capable of spinning about 150 grammes of yarn in a day. Often local materials are used to support local sheep herders so the ancient form of retaining wool continues. Most of the wool is from a breed of sheep known as the dhumba sheep. This sheep has an extra fat pack on its tail adding extra oil called lanolin to the wool hence increasing the quality of the wool. The dyeing process is time consuming and requires patience and a great deal of skill and experience - as in fact do all the disciplines in carpet making. Many of the workers learned their skills from their fathers and grandfathers or even great-grandfathers.

Dyeing the Wool

There are three basic categories of dye: natural dyes, aniline dyes and chrome dyes. Aniline dyes are acid-based synthetics. Such dyes are harsh; they strip the essential oils from the wool making it stiff, hard and brittle. Aniline dyes are used with poorer grades of wool and lower quality rugs.

Chromium dyes have been developed in the last forty years. In quality they are now almost equal to vegetable dyes. They are colorfast in washing, they do not harm the wool, and they offer the designer a much wider variety of shades and colors than natural dyes. Most rugs today use a combination of natural and chromium dyes.

Each year a selection of rugs is produced with natural dyes. Natural dyes are made from flowers, roots, berries, bark, insects and occasionally form minerals or metals such as iron. They are also quite costly since gathering and preparing all the ingredients for the dye takes much time. In addition, the dyeing process for just one bundle of wool can take as long as two weeks. Natural dyes are also quite tricky to produce as a constant temperature needs to be maintained to achieve a consistent absorption of the dye. Many times the final color is only known when the completed rug is washed. When there is a shortage of rainfall, it is difficult to get enough "juicy" plats to produce good natural dyes.

A dye master, who acts like a head cook, overseas the process. He knows all the "recipes" for making each dye and with expert skill alters his recipe for a certain color to accommodate variations in the wool. Within the industry, the dyer is highly respected for his skill and deserves credit for the beauty, clarity and depth of colors in an Oriental rug. Once the wool is dyed, it is taken to the various villages and stored until it is dispensed to families for use.

Color

Colors are meaningful in Oriental cultures; they make up an integral part of the Easterner's beliefs about life and order in the universe. Tonality, shading, placement and arrangement of color are other important factors in the meaning of design for an Oriental rug.

Designing the Oriental Rug

To create the more intricate floral Perisan designs, the designs are first grafted out on a piece of graph paper, or a wooden block . Each square on the graph paper represents one knot. The design is first sketched with pencil and then painted with watercolors to suggest one color combination.

Knotting

The backbone of the rug, the warp, is usually constructed of cotton thread for Persian and Bokhara carpets and wool threads for Tribal carpets. The warp is usually created in the village center or house courtyard. By foot, motorcycle or bicycle, it is then transported to the individual weaver's home. There the warp is set on the loom and pulled very taut, like guitar strings. Each warp has a front set of threads and a back set. When put on the loom these are separated. The looms are located inside the rug weavers' homes. This gives opportunity for women to work. Bokhara and Persian rugs are made on vertical looms while tribal rugs are often made on horizontal looms.

An expert weaver can knot approximately forty knots per minute. One knot is tied at a time and cut as evenly as possible with the churi (knife), and then the next knot is made. The churi is crafted in such a manner that the top "crook" adds the extra weight for easy cutting. This "crook" is blunt and is used to do the first pounding of the knots. The weaver knows the order of the knots either by reading from the talam or from memory. When one row of knots is completed, a weft thread is shuttled through the carpet and pounded into place by the panja, a comb like tool. The warp threads are then shifted and another weft thread is shuffled through. Each row is then trimmed to keep the pile as even as possible which is necessary for good washing.