Scrapbook > Making Rugs in India (8)
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Showroom Scene
In this typical showroom scene, buyers are being shown a wide variety of rugs by a local rug manufacturer. This is the first floor of a warehouse attached to the factory owner's home. All but one process of making these rugs is done in the warehouse. The only step missing is the actual rug weaving which is done on looms in villages dotted all across India. Multiple generations of families will weave rugs and contribute to the fine art and craft of rug making.
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Design Inspiration
On another floor of the factory complex, a textile designer uses fabric samples and other design inspirations to create rug designs. Here you see the fabric samples behind the designer. On the table in front is a huge, full-scale graph paper printout of the rug pattern which the designer generated by computer. These printouts are sent to village weavers to guide them in weaving the finished carpet.
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Computer Designers
In a large room, up to 25 textile designers are busy at work on custom rug patterns. These will be printed out to exact size on large pieces of graph paper.
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Handspun
Irwin snapped this picture of handspun, vegetable dyed wool which will be weighed and sent with the full-scale graph-printed patterns to village weavers. There may be more than one person working on a single loom, with three or more skilled weavers taking turns on the loom. Depending on the number of knots per inch and the size of the rug, it can take up to three or four years to weave a handmade beauty.
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Weighing Each Color
This is a traditional scale for weighing skeins of wool used to weave rugs. Workers calculate how much wool is needed for each color used in the overall rug design. They then send the skeins of wool, properly weighed to complete the job, with the graph paper rug design to the weavers.
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Fuzzy
Rugs, once they're woven, are sent back from the weavers to the rug factory. They look fuzzy, woven with the raw wool. At this point they are ready for some final preparation steps.
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Finishing Touches
Once the fuzzy, raw wool rugs return to the factory from the village weavers, they are carefully inspected by workers who repair any holes, dropped stitches, or other defects. They also use small, angled scissors to carefully clip the fuzziness off the wool and trim the pile of the rug down to the desired finish, high or low.
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Works of Art
Fine rugs are the product of intensive hand-skilled labor. Piles can be cut down to be almost threadbare, making a new rug look like an antique. The next time you see a handmade rug, you'll be able to appreciate the amazing, skilled, and people-intensive process behind the finished product.
