Wovens + Hand-Knotted Gems

Delia Tacheny
INT 323 - Textiles, Materials, and Sourcing

Weekly Summary

After covering the basics of floorcovering last week, primarily tufted flooring, this week we read about weaving as well as other techniques including hand-knotted antique rugs. 

In general, woven pile floorcoverings contain four weaving parts: warp yarns, stuffer yarns, filling shots (yarns), and pile yarns. Filling shots/ yarns are crosswise yarns used to anchor the pile warp yarns, and these shots are usually made of olefin, jute, or cotton, while the pile yarns may be any assortment of fiber. The stuffer yarns serve as a back-layer plane in between the chain warp yarns. The chain warp yarns are typically made of polyester, and they form a zig-zag configuration as they pass over and under the shots. There are a variety of woven carpet forms such as Axminster, Wilton, Velvet, and Chenille. Other non-woven machine operated carpet techniques include fusion-bonding, braiding, and needle-punching. 

Both Axminster and Wilton are named after the British town where they were developed. Preparation for Axminister weaving is intricate and complex, and even more so with more complicated designs. First, a colored print design of one full pattern repeat is made with small colored blocks representing different pile tufts, which must be woven precisely in their planned positions. Next, the various chosen colors of yarn are wound onto 3-foot-long spools following the sequence printed on one crosswise row of the design. These spools are then linked end-to-end to form a bracket. The number of spools linked together depends on the width of the carpet. While Axminster carpets are always a cut-pile, Wilton weaving can have either a cut-pile or loop-pile. "Dead and buried” yarns are a distinguishing feature of Wilton carpets; when a certain color yarn isn’t needed at various points in the face design, the yarn is simply carried through the backing, and it is these yarns the term refers to. Positives, these yarns add weight, cushioning, and resiliency; negatives, they also add to the material’s cost.

Pitch is the number of pile units per 27 inches of width of woven carpet. Needle count is the number of needles per crosswise inch on a tufted carpet. In order to compare density, simply divide the woven carpet’s pitch by 27 in order to get the number of pile units per crosswise inch; this is now a comparable number to the needle count of tufted products.

Hand-woven carpets and tapestries have been around for centuries serving as a cultural craft and heritage. While patterns and motifs of Oriental rugs use to represent different cultural and geographic heritages, nowadays, weavers throughout the world have simply adopted and adapted the traditional patterns, making it difficult to identify the country of origin. All authentic Oriental rugs are hand-knotted -- crazy, right?! The knot options are either the Sehna knot (Persian Knot) or the Ghiordes knot (Turkish knot). In the Sehna knot, a pile tuft projects from every space between the warp yarns because the knot completely encircles one warp yarn and passes under the adjacent warp yarn. Whereas, in the Ghiordes knot, both ends of the pile yarn extend from the same space, so no pile tufts fill the alternate spaces. Additionally, Sehna-knotted rugs are finer than a Ghiordes-knotted rug, and the motif is more sharply defined. 

Those considered Antique rugs were produced prior to the mid-1800’s and had as many as 500 knots per square inch. Old/Semi-Antique Rugs were woven during the latter half of the 19th century. And modern rugs are those that are produced during our current century; modern rugs generally only have 100 to 225 knots per square inch, though some have up to 323. Besides Oriental rugs, there are also European rugs such as the French Savonnerie and Aubusson. Rya rugs originated in the Scandinavian countries. And Flokati rugs are woven in Greece and incorporate long pile of natural wool. In both rya and flokati rugs, a wooden rod/ stick, also known as a rya stick/ flossa stick is used to maintain a consistent pile height. The pile yarns are looped around the rod, and their height depends on the depth of the stick.

All the rugs listed above are still in pile form, but hand-constructed flat rugs are also a cultural technique; these are similar to a tapestry construction. Of these, there are khilim rugs, woven in Eastern Europe and depicting natural patterns of flowers, animals, and the like; rugs woven by the Native Americans which feature symbols of tribal life and culture; and Dhurrie rugs which are made in India. Both khilim rugs and those woven by Native Americans are reversible rugs as the filling yarns are woven in. However, in khilim rugs, the weaving may produce slits or openings where the colors change in the design motif, (but these opening are finished and will not ravel); in contrast, rugs woven by the Native Americans have the filling yarns woven in a way to avoid slits with a dovetailing or interlocking technique.

Research Initiatives: 

Pile Yarn Height + Density

Pile height adds fullness to floorcoverings; density is usually increased by the closeness and number of pile yarns, rather than the pile thickness. Therefore, the pile yarns must always be a minimum height to create the level of density and fullness needed. The height of a pile is used to create texture and pattern (Yates, 272). Pile yarn weight is the weight of the yarns used in the wear layer and those portions of the pile yarn that extend into the backing layer -- measured in ounces per sq. yard or grams per sq. meter. The effective face yarn weight is a way to express the weight of the pile yarns in the wear layer only, excluding those in the backing (292).

Carpets can either be left uncut as loop-piles, turned into cut-piles, or a mixture of both to create a texture or pattern. Cut piles can achieve textures such as plush (velvet), textured plush, saxony, frieze, shag, or cable. Loop piles carpets can either be level-loop piles, or multi-level loop piles. And as mentioned, cut-loop piles can form an assortment of patterns, such as those pictured (Barnard).

CARE - Carpet America Recovery Effort

CARE was started in the late 1900's by members of the carpet industry, government representatives, and other industry-related organizations, with the goal to better encourage fiber and carpet recycling. They signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Carpet Stewardship which established industry-wide goals to reduce carpet waste. However, following its 10-year-life, the MOU was not renewed. However, CARE continues to operate as a national program and works as the carpet stewardship organization in California, where recycling of post-consumer carpet is mandatory. CARE's participants represent a variety of related industries, and CARE members are the largest number of users of PET from plastic water bottles, and they have recycled over 5 billion pounds of post-consumer carpet (Summarized from Yates, 281). According to their website, CARE's mission statement reads, "The mission of CARE is to advance market-based solutions that increase landfill diversion and recycling of post-consumer carpet, encourage design for recyclability and meet meaningful goals as approved by the CARE Board of Directors" (About CARE). Carpet reclamation programs include EFC, J + J Flooring, and Bentley Mills. 

About CARE. Carpet America Recovery Effort. (n.d.). https://carpetrecovery.org/about-care/

Barnard, C. (2020, October 18). Types of Carpet: Fibers and Styles. This Old House. https://www.thisoldhouse.com/flooring/21017487/wall-to-wall-carpet-buying-guide

Yates, M., & Concra, A. (2019). Textiles for Residential and Commercial Interiors. Fairchild Books, Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.