Types of carpets and weaving techniques

Carpets are the only piece of art that we can use to eat, sleep, and walk on them... But the world of carpets remains somewhat unknown, as many are ignorant of how carpets are woven, and what is the difference between knotted, woven, and knotted carpets...

In this article, we will discover the main types of carpets and the weaving techniques used in their weaving.

Types of carpets | weaving techniques

Let's start first by reviewing some terminology in the world of the carpet industry:

• The warp of the fabric : that which is extended from its vertical threads attached to the upper and lower beams, and the warp is the basis of the carpet.
• Weft : The weft threads are the horizontal thread that runs across the carpet and are the basic building blocks of the carpet structure.
• Pile : is the thickness of the carpet from the base.

Hand tufted rugs

The knots in traditional Persian rugs are created using the following steps:

• Pass the thread through one vertical weft on the left side.
• Bring it forward on the right side of the weft of the fabric.
• Pass it through the right side of the next weft of fabric on the left.
• Finally, bring it back to the front on the left side.

You will get one knot which can be cut after that, the process may look a bit complicated but below picture will help you to understand clearly.

A single 8 by 10 rug can contain between 1 to 6 million knots or 100 to 800 knots per square inch, and it takes more than 3,000 man hours to make a hand-knotted 8 by 10 rug, which is equivalent to 384 days from work.

Hand weaving (flat knitting)

This carpet is woven on a loom and needs from one to 4 people depending on the size of the carpet. The yarn thread or weft is placed on the loom in the middle of the lower part and the upper part of the warp, then the weaver begins to combine the carpet with the bat, and the thread and warp are woven together. This gives us a flat texture.

Pile is the difference between a flat knit and a woven rug. To make a pile pile, a weaver uses the same technique mentioned above, but instead of laying the thread, the weaver places a rod or tube in the middle of the warp. This raises the thread and creates a pile. The weaver will use both techniques (yarn and tubes) interchangeably in The process of weaving the carpet, and in order to finish the process, the loops created by the tube are left, or they can be cut to obtain a complete look.

Hand-tufted (braided) carpets

Plaited or (tufted) woven carpets are very similar to woven carpets, but they are woven in different ways. Instead of starting with warps and making the weft using the loom, the weaver begins with a pre-woven cloth as a base.

Next, the base cloth is hung and taut, from here a tufting gun is used to create the design, the thread (from the thread gun) is shot through the back of the rug to the front, then the thread is cut and the pile is created.

By using the base cloth, you don't have to commit to the routine row-by-row installation of the rug. The design can be created sporadically, which helps the weaver to create more precise designs. Instead of building a mosaic from the bottom up, you can weave individual pieces one by one.

Handwoven rugs

Like tufted rugs, woven rugs are made by hand on a base cloth using a rug weaving tool.

The tool is pushed through the front of the cloth, then the weaver grabs the thread from the back and pulls it back to the front of the rug, in the process creating individual loops.

Flat pattern rugs

In addition to woven rugs, which are discussed under the flatweave section, flatweaves can also be made with knots.

Handwoven flat rugs

Hand-woven flat carpets are very similar to hand-knotted Persian carpets, where the weavers use Persian knots, but instead of cutting the knot, the work continues with the same knot.

Machine-made (programmed) carpets

These carpets use the same techniques described above but the difference is that they are made by machine. Programmed carpets can only be woven using the woven, tufted and flat carpet techniques. Tufted (woven) carpets cannot be copied by hand using a machine.

Machine-made carpets have been produced well in the past years because of the possibility of producing them quickly and in different sizes and large quantities, as the hand-knotted carpet of size 8*10 takes 384 days, the machine-woven carpet takes one day, and the machine-made carpet may approach the quality of the hand-woven carpet , but certainly nothing beats the quality of a handwoven rug.

Translated by: nwrugs.com