Rugs and Carpets

I

Introduction

Rugs and Carpets, heavy fabrics commonly made of wool and used as floor coverings. A rug differs from a carpet in that it is usually woven in one piece and can be of any size but usually does not cover an entire floor.

The term rug is derived from the Scandinavian word rugga by way of the old Norwegian rogg, which meant a wool covering for the bed or body. For several centuries in Europe, the term rug meant a rough, heavy woollen fabric characterized by a coarse, napped finish and used as an item of clothing by the poorer classes.

The term carpet was used originally to describe coverings for tables, beds, and other furniture, and only from the early 18th century was it associated with the floor. The modern usage is imprecise and includes all woven floor coverings and some textiles, such as wall hangings, furniture coverings, and saddlebags made either with a knotted pile or flat-woven like a tapestry. The word carpet comes from the Latin carpere, “to pluck or seize”, thus implying a plucking of wool or carding of wool fibres, and reflects the fact that for centuries wool has been used in making carpets.

The terms rug and carpet are today virtually interchangeable; however, a rug implies a floor covering smaller than a carpet, which can be large enough to cover an entire floor.

II

Weaving techniques

There are two types of carpets: flat weave and knotted pile. Flat-woven carpets such as kilims, consist simply of a warp (vertical) yarn and weft (horizontal) yarn. Patterns are created by limiting the weft yarn of certain colours to certain areas. The technique is especially suitable to geometric, rather than curvilinear, designs. Flat-woven carpets may be embellished by brocading (introducing supplementary warps or wefts to create a pattern) or by the needlework technique of embroidery.

Knotted pile carpets consist of a foundation of flat-woven yarns to which a knotted pile is added on the loom. The pile is constructed by wrapping or knotting short individual strands around the warp threads. After each row is knotted, a weft thread is carried across the full width of the web and beaten firmly into place with a heavy comb. As an area is completed, the knotted strands are sheared to create an even pile.

There are three main types of knot: the Turkish, or Ghiordes, knot (used mainly in the Caucasus, Iran, and Asia Minor), the Persian, or Sehna, knot (used mainly in the India, China, Iran, and Egypt), and the Spanish knot (used mainly in Spain). Knotting is suitable both to geometric and curvilinear designs; the fineness of the weave and the intricacy of the design depends on the thickness of the warps and the density of the knots. The Persian knot is capable of producing the most intricate designs.

A

The loom

Generally, looms for flat-weave carpets are the same as those for knotted pile carpets. Though the form of looms varies in every culture, their constituent parts are the same. A loom consists of two fixed parallel bars and one or two adjustable bars around which the warp (vertical threads) is secured. They may be either vertical or horizontal, with heavy beams between which the warp is stretched. Auxiliary bars are attached by means of loops, or heddles, to alternate warps and enable the weaver to thread the weft yarn between the warp. A type of upright loom is the warp-weighted loom used in ancient Greece and in present-day Scandinavia. It is so named because the warp hangs free from the upper bar, weighted at the ground with ceramic or stone weights tied to the end of the warp.

III

Materials

The most common material for rugs and carpets has traditionally been sheep's wool, although in certain regions goat's or camel's hair is also used. Luxury carpets are woven with silk pile. Although wool is often used for warp, cotton is more common because of its smooth surface and its resistance to stretching. When gold and silver threads are used, they are generally brocaded into the woven surface.