Construction
Rug construction refers to the methods, techniques, and processes used to create rugs from raw materials. Each construction technique affects the rug’s texture, durability, thickness, pattern clarity, and overall look, which can influence where and how the rug is used.
In essence, rug construction defines everything from the rug's aesthetic and texture to its resilience underfoot and in use. By understanding the construction process, you can select a rug that best matches your requirements and style.
A simple handmade, flat-woven, pileless floor covering made using a variety of methods including curved-weft, slitweave, and weft-faced tapestry techniques. Kilims are woven by weavers from throughout the world including North America (Navajo rugs), Iran, India, Pakistan, Caucuses, Anatolia, the Balkans, China, and Afghanistan and South America.
Starting with the ancient Pazyryk Carpet found buried in a frozen Siberian burial mound some 2500 years ago, the method of creating a hand-knotted rug has changed little over time. The true art of a hand-knotted rug is in the way it’s constructed, as it is by far the most difficult method used in the creation of handmade rugs. Without the aid of glues or machinery, a hand-knotted rug is painstakingly created by a weaver following a design, knotting tufts of yarn to warp threads and cutting them one at a time by hand. Once a row of knots is completed one or more wefts are interwoven between every other warp. They are then beaten down using a metal or wooden comb to lock them in place and after the knotting is complete, the warp ends (fringes) are then tied off to prevent the rug from unraveling.
Handmade refers to different techniques that use a combination of hand and other devices to weave a rug.
Machine made rugs are produced by electrically powered looms that are often controlled by computers. A machine made rug is constructed very differently than a handmade rug. For instance, some machine made rug will have a very uniform appearance. They are often made with synthetic materials such as polypropylene, polyolefin, a blend of synthetic and natural materials or all natural materials. Most machine made rugs will have a fake fringe attached to the ends, whereas in a hand-knotted rug, the fringe is actually a part of the rug and is made of the warp threads that run the length of the rug. These warp threads are tied at either end so the rug will not unravel thus creating the fringes. In machine made rugs the binding is machine stitched unlike in most handmade rugs where the edges are part of the rug made of warps and wefts sometimes this is reinforced with threads known as binding or selvage.
A knotting technique unique to Tibet, Nepal and India whereby a metal rod is laid across the front of a set of warps, different colored threads of wool, silk, or cotton yarn are looped around the rod then around two warps, a weft is inserted between the alternating warps to secure the loops and the loops are either cut or the rod is removed to leave a looped pile. With this technique, a weaver can create a near infinite number of designs and compositions by changing the size of the rod to create different size loops or pile heights, or by changing the yarn type or color.
