Oriental Rug Weaving

Construction

Rows of knots are tied on a foundation of warp and weft and become the pile, which consists of upright yarn. The warp runs along the length of the carpet and the fineness of the weave depends on its thickness and the proximity of the warps to one another. When the rug is completed the ends form the fringes, which may be weft-faced, braided or tasseled or secured in some manner.

The wefts pass under and over the warps from one side of the rug to another. They are loosely plied or sometimes untied to allow them to be tightly packed to secure each row of knots.

Weaving normally begins by passing a number of wefts to form a base to work on. The knots are tied around consecutive sets of adjacent warps. The fineness of the weave depends on the density of the knots.

Design

Village or nomadic rugs generally use traditional inherited designs, which are reproduced from memory. These often have totemic or symbolic associations, but in most instances they are mutated forms whose original significance has long been forgotten. Most sophisticated town rugs are curvilinear designs reproduced from paintings (including pictorial rugs) and the designs are called by the head weaver.

Looms

Looms don't vary greatly in essential details, although they vary greatly in size and sophistication. The main technical requirement of a loom is to provide the correct tension and means of dividing the warps into alternate sets of leaves.

Looms can be vertical or horizontal. Horizontal looms are generally fairly small - they are often used by nomadic/tribal people and are easier to transport, as they can be assembled and dismantled quite easily.

Vertical looms are undoubtedly more comfy to operate, although they are not transportable and thus, only found amongst sedentary people.

Tools

A number of essential tools are needed to operate the loom:

a knife for cutting the yarn as the knots are tied

a comblike instrument for packing down the wefts

a pair of shears for trimming the yarn

Knots

There are two basic types of knots, upon which variations are based.

The Turkish knot, which is typically single-wefted

The Persian knot, which is typically double-wefted

In Pakistan, the Turkish knot is often referred to as the single-knot, whereas the Persian knot is often referred to as the double-knot.

Materials

The warp and weft of a carpet can be various combinations of wool, cotton, silk, and these materials themselves come in various qualities and textures.

Dyes

Until the introduction of chemical colors in the second half of the 19^th century, only natural dyestuffs were used, such as the madder and indigo plant, insects, bark, fruit, and other ingenious methods, to produce shades of red and blue. These primary colors could be mixed with other primary colors to produce a wide range of secondary colors.

Although natural colors are fast, they do fade in the course of time when exposed to light and alkalis, but this produces a pleasing, harmonious effect which cannot be equaled with chemical colors.

Chemical dyes fall into two main groups. One is the acid or analine dye, and the second is the chrome dye. The majority of commercial carpets produced today for the world market are made from chemical dyes, although there has been a resurgence in the last few years in the popularity of vegetable dyes.

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