The origin of the handmade rug begins in the nomadic tribes of Central Asia. The theory is that the nomads were unwilling to kill valuable livestock (to make floor coverings from their hides) so they used sheep, goat and camel fur to create textiles with hair like pile that mimicked animal hide. The oldest fragment of a knotted rug dates to 5th century BC and was found in the frozen tomb of a nomadic chieftain in the Atlas Mountains. Since this fragment is fairly sophisticated in appearance it is believed that the art of the knotted pile rug began even earlier. The art of the hand-knot was then raised to a highly structured and artistic level, bringing you the carpets that you see today.
Made mostly in India and the Himalayan Mountains, these rugs have a thick, heavy and often coarse pile. Originally made to use as floor beds, these rugs are hand-knotted with 100% wool in bright fun colors. The whimsical designs come from the women who used to weave the rugs. They often weave in symbols to represent their families and possessions such as a cow, a house, and children. These rugs are always made of wool and are very reasonably priced.
These rugs are known as Tibetan for the type of knot that they use in the making of the rug. The most common characteristics of a Tibetan rug includes a thick heavy pile, horizontal lines running through the pile (caused by the way in which they knot the rug), and their high altitude, low shed wool. They are usually contemporary in pattern and are made in Tibet, India, and Nepal.
These are one of the most interesting types of rugs. They are colored using all natural dyes, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, bark, bugs and plants. Once the rug is completed each rug undergoes a tea dying and sun fading process which will give it an antiqued look. Vegetable dyed rugs are 100% wool and have a short pile. Price points are usually higher for the vegetable dyed rugs, because of all the manual labor involved. They are mostly from Pakistan and are usually one-of-a-kind.
Kelim means Persian in Turkish. These rugs are flat woven (meaning that there is no pile), usually geometric in pattern, made from wool, goat or camel hair. Their heavy and warm characteristics make this a wonderful rug for use as a wall hanging, window covering, bedding, or floor covering.
One of the last dying art forms, everything in the process of making a hand made rug is hand done. This includes, hand carding of the wool, hand dying, hand spinning, hand-knotting, and hand shearing. These qualities increase the life of your rug, as well as its durability.
These are wonderful, quality rugs that are woven completely by machines. Karastan, our machine made rug of choice, offers a variety of sizes and styles. Usually available in a variety of sizes (even hard to find rounds) machine made rugs are less expensive than hand-knotted rugs.
The wool on tufted rugs is pulled through by hand but instead of knotting each strand, canvas duck backing is glued to the back keeping the yarns from pulling. Because these rugs are less labor-intensive, the price point is lower.