COLOR FORECASTING

Ever wonder how color trends are determined?
Here's how - PANTONE Video: Find out how we forecast new color trends.

Caring For Your Investment - Rug Cleaning

Handmade (hand-knotted) rugs are works of art and in many cases are generational investments. Proper care is essential for long lasting beauty and enjoyment of your rugs. Wool is a strong and resilient fiber, one of the strongest and most durable of all fibers. This means that your rug can take a great deal of wear without damage. For the most part, you will only need to do regular vacuuming and spot cleaning of spills to keep your rug looking lovely for several years.

Every 8-10 years you will want to have your rug professionally cleaned. Doing so will bring out the natural beauty of the rug that will closely match the look it had when you first purchased it. The rug will most likely be softer and the patina over time heightens the inherent artistry of the piece. See the video below which shows the "immersion" process for cleaning rugs.

NW Rugs offers Rug Cleaning and Repair Services
for ALL rug types.

Contact the showroom closest to you for details.

We want to extend a special thanks to Zach Reets and David Bunten, of Champion Cleaning . Copyright 2010 for their excellent video series.

The Fine Art of Rug Weaving

Hand-knotted rugs can be defined as floor coverings or throws woven by hand on frames (also known as looms). The hand-knotted pile rug probably originated in Central Asia between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. The oldest, surviving hand-knotted oriental rug is the Pazryk Carpet, which dates back to 4th century BC. Excavated from a semi-frozen burial mound in the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, it is now on display in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, Russia.

Traditionally woven with silk, wool and cotton, and today even with shoddy yarn or synthetic yarn, hand-knotted carpets are manufactured in Iran, Pakistan, India, Turkey, China, Northern Africa, the Caucasus, Nepal, Spain, Turkmenistan and Tibet. Carpets from each region are different, reflecting cultural and geographical influences.

Based on the way they are made, rugs can be classified as hand-knotted, hand-tufted and flat weaves, such as kilims and dhurries. There are other variations too, as in the case of hooked rugs, which are made by pulling strips of cloth (usually wool or cotton) through the meshes of a sturdy fabric such as burlap. While hand-knotted rugs and hand-tufted rugs are largely manufactured for commercial purposes, kilims are woven for self use by the nomadic herdsmen of Central Asia and North Africa. Made from the wool of domestic animals—goats, sheep and camels—these colorful flat rugs are dyed with natural substances and woven on narrow portable looms.

Special thanks to Richard Rothstein for his wonderful video from YouTube.

Colors in Vegetable Dye Rugs

Natural dyes are made from plants, insects, and minerals. Most common is madder (Rubia tinctorum), an herb native to southern Europe and Mediterranean countries and to Central Asia. Its root is the color producer--always a warm red. Cool reds came from scale insects. Blue, the second most common color in vegetable dye rugs, is extracted from the indigo plant (Indigofera tinctoria), a legume native to India. It produces all shades of blue.

Yellows come from a variety of plant sources. Among them are saffron stamens, pomegranate rind, larkspur, salvia, and certain sumacs. Purples and greens and oranges, of course, are created from combinations of these three. Browns were and are created from walnut and oak nut husks. These are highly tannic and thus corrosive when used in cloth and rugs. Blacks are combinations of tannic dyes and iron salts, and are the most corrosive.

Distinguishing vegetable dye rugs from synthetic dye rugs is only definitive in laboratory analysis. However, certain characteristics of each are often apparent to the naked eye. Synthetic dyes permeate the fiber evenly; natural dyes are absorbed in a graduated pattern. Synthetic dyes fade in natural sunlight and, given enough time, disappear almost altogether. Natural dyes only soften or mellow in sunlight, no matter how prolonged the exposure.

Generally speaking, nowadays most wool for rugs is colored with synthetic dye. However, finer stores and showrooms will have a few vegetable dyed rugs so it is worth asking your sales professional if that is what you want.