A Hand Knotted Rug - How Man Defeated The Machine
The Industrial Revolution seemed a real godsend when it took place, in the 19th century. It solved agricultural or energetic problems without which the world would certainly be different today. What's more, it solved another astringent problem; the textile industry needed a miracle to provide clothes and textile household items for the rising modern world, however, the invention of the powered loom solved it.As the demographic explosion began at the turn the 19th century more and more people turned to factory-made products. Sadly, the world of handmade products met with a depression-era which only began to recover decades later. This is the case of the hand knotted rug, however the good news is that today we live in a revival of the hand-knotted era, which according to the legends make our homes happy, guaranteed!
The art and skill of making a hand knotted rug has been passed from generation to generation as a family legacy of more traditional and what we now call 'undeveloped' countries, especially in the countries of the Middle East, where the factories didn't gain so much respect. Therefore a hand knotted rug has become synonym with Persian Rug, Oriental rug or Turkish rug (Indian, Pakistani, Tunisian etc), because genuine carpets coming from these countries are all handmade.
Making such a carpet is surely not a child's play! It's a laborious, daunting task needing lots of patience and skill. It will take months to complete a single middle-sized rug and all the high quality hand knotted rugs are made by the hands of experts in terms of weaving and knotting.
A hand knotted rug will basically consist of 2 parts: the base which is made by the warps or threads that go along the carpet and wefts, threads that go across the carpet. Then there is the pile (the visible part of the rug made by the yarns tufted on the base.
The warps are stretched between the parallel boards of the loom and the weaver will knot each thread which will later form the pile on each warp. After a single row is completed, a weft is pushed down to hold the raw of tufts and the operation is repeated until the carpet is finished, knot by knot, inch by inch.
At the end, the carpet maker will shear the rug pile as short as possible, the shorter the better. The end result is an extremely durable, usually naturally dyed, beautifully designed hand knotted rug. How can someone resist the temptation?
The materials used are also of utmost importance. The base is usually made of cotton, but some tribal works are made entirely of wool; for the pile, high-quality wool is the most common and occasionally, to highlight parts of the rug, silk will be used. The most expensive, yet absolutely fascinating hand knotted rugs are made entirely of silk.
So what makes a hand knotted rug so special? Hand knotted rugs are durable without using any kind of glues or extra materials other than cotton, wool or silk. The knots are so tightly tied and so skillfully placed that there is no need to reinforce the base.
The fringe at the end of the rugs comes from the inner warps, whereas in other types of carpets is added, sewed or glued, the differences could go on to fill entire volumes.
Take a chance and see it with your own eyes, feel it with your own hands and feet. You will not regret it, that's a promise.
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