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Commonly Used Rug Terms
Abrash - the striated color which comes, in a contemporary rug, from variations in the dye lots. In antique rugs, the abrash occurs as the rug's dyes age differently. In Village and Tribal/Nomadic rugs, abrash is normal, and considered highly desirable. Two of our Gandhara Line, Yomuds #13 and #14 have beautifully abrashed backgrounds. All of the Khane and Boridan carpets have abrash.
Border - The bands of pattern which surround the background of a carpet, and frame the design decoratively.
Chai Wash - Washing the carpet with tea to soften the color and give the rug an old appearance. No chemicals are used, only tea.
Fil Pai (or Gol) - The medallions found in many Turkoman carpets, in various shapes and sizes. Frequently an indicator of which tribe created the design, though
pattern copying and borrowing occurred.
Fringes - the ends of the warp threads, which are knotted decoratively on each end of the rug. Not all rugs have fringes at both ends - Purdahs (Ensis) have decorative, frequently multicolored fringes at the bottom, but only Kilim bands across the top.
Gereh - The number of knots in a row 7 centimeters long.
Ghazni and Karakul Wool - some of the finest carpet wool in the world, all out of Afghanistan, from fat-tailed sheep. We import it from Afghanistan, then have it hand spun in the Camps.
Ground Loom - The loom traditionally used by Turkoman tribal weavers, which sits horizontally about a foot above the ground. The weaver(s) sit on the loom to make the rug. |
A mix of technology - note the boombox.
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A soumac carpet on the loom with chicken(s).
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Kilims - Flat-woven textile which consists of warp and weft only, sometimes with slits in the weave, where two colors intersect. Also, the flat band of weaving at the top and bottom of a carpet. Soumac carpets are also flat-woven, but in a brocade weave, and are not reversible.
Merino Wool - New Zealand wool.
Pile - the ends of the wool, after the knot is tied, which form the nap of the carpet. A rug is woven from the bottom up, and the tails of the knots hang down, so a rug can appear lighter in color when viewed from the top, and darker from the bottom when viewed looking into the pile.
Selveges - the wrapped edges of the rug. A selvege is created first by the use of wefting threads, then over-wrapped decoratively when the carpet is finished, sometimes in wool and sometimes in animal (goat/horse/camel) hair.
Shearing - cutting the pile of the rug evenly. All our shearing is done by hand, with the rug wrapped around a big pole, and an expert wielding the big shearing scissors. We do not machine shear our rugs.
Vegetable/Vegetal Dyes - dyes made from plants, not synthetic dyes. We use indigo for all our blues, madder for many shades of red, isparuk ( a cousin to the mullein plant) for yellows, golds and buffs, one dip in isparuk, and a second dip in indigo for our greens. We also use natural, unbleached ivory, for the creams in our carpets.
Warp and Weft - The Warp threads run up and down on the loom, have one knot tied around each two threads. The knots are held in place by the Wefting which is woven in and out between every thread. We use 100% wool warp and weft in our Gandhara carpets, and cotton warp and weft in the Khane and Boridans.
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Dyeing with Indigo |
Dyed Wools
Materials used in Vegetable Dyeing
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Washing - Can mean a literal soap and water wash, or an applied chemical finish. We use only a soap and water wash on the Khane and Boridan carpets.
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