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All About Carpets & Rugs

How Rugs are Made 

Techniques and Construction

The processing of the raw materials and the way that rugs are woven have an enormous effect on their quality, durability and value. One needs to appreciate these issues to evaluate its worth. Some knowledge of the weaving technique is also indispensable in identifying carpet types as well as the age of a piece. Such 'structural' considerations are far more instructive than the design in assessing the origin and quality of rugs.

Shearing

Shearing is the process that that removes the wool from the animal. Shorn wool is the superior type of wool because it comes from a living animal with a maximum of moisture or lanolin. Some wool is chemically removed from the hides of slaughtered sheep. This 'dead wool' is always dull and dry. Rugs made with it are to be avoided.

Carding

After the wool has been shorn and gathered, it must combed manually to remove any bulk dirt and to begin the process of separating out the fibers for spinning. This carded wool is then washed. Picked cotton balls and silk cocoons are also submitted to a process of carding and washing before they are spun.

Spinning

Carded and washed wool, silk, and cotton fibers need to be spun into yarns before they can be woven. At the simplest level this can be done by pulling some fibers out of a cluster of carded wool or cotton and rubbing them back and forth between the palms. A weight or spindle whorl can be attached to one end of the fibers to allow gravity to facilitate the process, making the spinning tighter. Hand spinning can also be aided by use of a spinning wheel. Since the fibers of cotton and especially silk are much finer than wool, a spinning wheel is more of a requirement in turning these materials into yarns. Individual spun yarns can then be plied together to make a stronger, cable- or rope-like yarn that is necessary in the warp threads of the rug foundation. Machine spinning became common over the last century, but since it is so mechanically regular, machine-spun wool eliminates many of the textural, reflective variations that animate the surface of rugs made from hand-spun wool. Consequently, a revival of hand-spinning has accompanied the revival of natural dyes in the past twenty years.

Loom

Basically, a loom is a simple frame for constructing the rug foundation and the facing or pile. It consists of two horizontal bars held apart by two more perpendicular or vertical bars. The vertical warp yarns are then wrapped around the horizontal bars in close parallel rows. Horizontal or weft yarns are then passed in alternation over and under each adjacent warp. This constitutes the foundation of the rug for pile pieces. The loom may either be erected vertically, a 'vertical loom, 'or it may be set up parallel to the ground surface, a 'horizontal loom.' The former type is used by village and city weavers. The latter type is typical of nomadic, tent-dwelling weavers. For longer pieces the warps may be extend repeatedly and indefinitely by tying on additional lengths of yarn, while the lower horizontal bar can be rotated as a roller, both to maintain the tension on the warps, and to roll up the portion of the rug that has been completed 

Foundation

In technical terms the foundation of the rug is comprised of warps and the wefts, the vertical and horizontal yarns upon or into which the pile or facing is woven. On the loom, the warps run vertically, while the wefts run horizontally, alternating over and under each successive warp. Essentially the foundation is the substructure that supports the pile or flatwoven facing and holds the rug together. The foundation, i.e. the warps and wefts, can be made entirely of wool, cotton, or silk, or some combination of these. Some rugs have wool warps and cotton wefts; others have the reverse. Warps are generally made up of plied yarns of either wool, cotton, or silk. Wefting can be unplied or plied, and in the latter case it can combine these different materials. 

Warp

The warps are the yarns that run vertically around the horizontal frame bars on the loom. They are generally made of plied yarns, consisting of one material, whether wool, cotton, or silk. On the finished rug the exposed ends of the warps are the fringe.

Depressed Warps

Before introducing the horizontal wefting, the successive, parallel vertical warps on the loom are all on one level, determined by the horizontal loom bars that they wrap around. When the wefting is introduced if it is put in loosely with minimal tension, it literally snakes its way over and under each warp across the loom. If, however, the wefting is pulled tightly from either side, it will displace the warps through which it passes into two levels, one upper, one lower. On the back of the rug, this bi-level structure will appear to have a ribbed or corrugated surface with an upper warp and a lower or 'depressed' warp. In cases were the wefts are pulled absolutely tight, the depressed warps may not even show on the back of the rug. Many city rugs, especially those made in Persia have this structure. It results in a stiffer, denser weave that is less supple or flexible and which will lie more flatly on the floor without buckling or wrinkling. This is a highly desirable structure for room-sized rugs in high traffic areas. 

Wefts

Wefts are the yarns that run horizontally on the loom over and under each successive vertical warp. Wefts may be made of entirely wool, cotton, or silk, or some combination thereof, and they may be plied or unplied. The wefts may then be compressed vertically with a weaver's comb to cover the warps entirely, producing a simple 'weft-faced tapestry' or kilim. Alternatively, the weaver may repeatedly introduce a row of looped 'knots' in between several passes of wefting which can then be uniformly clipped to produce pile.

Shed Stick

The shed stick is a long, flat piece of wood that facilitates the passing of the weft through the successive warps. By wrapping a short length of the weft yarn around one end of the shed stick, it helps to force the yarn between the warps.

Heddle

The heddle is a thin bar or wood serving as an armature for a series of loops that wrap around alternate warps on the loom. By pulling evenly on the heddle it is possible to reverse the over-under orientation of the warps and to separate them so that successive passes of wefting may be run through quickly, easily, and in an alternating over-under weave. The heddle enable the foundation to be produced quickly so that the weavers may allocate their time to producing the pile or facing.

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