Hellenic Rug Imports | Catalogue glossary

Area Rugs Glossary

Area rugs have had a variety of roles throughout the centuries of World History; Rugs have been used for means of trade and dowry. The finer the rug the more trading power it had. Every region of the world has different ways of describing the quality and density of their area rugs. In this glossary we explain some of the historical terminology we use to describe our rugs, their contents and the way they are made:

9/9 Agra: A hand knotting system used in Agra, India. This represents 81 Hand Knots per square inch.

Art Leather: Artificial leather (Faux Leather).

Artificial Silk: A man-made fiber to resemble silk, very durable; other names used are rayon and viscose.

Drysdale Wool: From sheep bred in Australia and New Zealand that are stocky in appearance and known to produce long stapled fleece of quality wool; very apt for carpet weaving.

Faux Mink: Artificial Mink.

Field: The part of an area rug's design surrounded by the border. The field may be blank or contain medallions or an over-all pattern.

Flat Weave: A flat weave area rug is any rug that is constructed without a pile. Here, colored weft yarns are woven through the warps to create the pattern. There are numerous varieties of flat weaves; kilims, leather, and cotton are just a few. Needlepoint is another type of flat weave that is created by weaving of the colored yarns through a pre-made scrim, or grid-like backing.

Foundation: The combination of warps and wefts in the body of an area rug.

Friction Bath: A process of washing the area rugs in a big "vat-like" structure using water from natural mountain streams. The streams are intercepted by wide piping where they are placed to fall from a height into the vat to create a "whirlpool" effect. This technique is unique to Greece and a centuries old method, used mainly for Flokati Rugs. The water swells the backing and unravels while the pile blossoms.

Fringe: Warps extending from the ends of an area rug, which are treated in several ways to prevent the wefts and knots from unravelling. Today, artificial fringe is added to some tufted and machine made area rugs to make them look authentic.

Ground: The interlaced combination of warp and weft that comprises the fabric in pile rugs. The ground is referred to as the foundation.

Hand-knotted Rug: An area rug where fine threads of colored yarn are hand-knotted onto a warp / weft backing and then sheared to create a pile. There are a variety of actual knot styles; Nepalese, Agra, Jaipur, Persian, and Turkish to name a few.

Hand-loomed Knotted 10/40 Nepalese: This loomed knotting system is similar to nepalese because rods are used to wrap the knots but unique because of limitation of colors used and the style of loom. This area rug is done on a traditional Indian pit loom.

Hand Spun: Wool or cotton spun into yarn using a hand spinning technique. This method is used when trying to create unique textured effects.

Hand-tufted Rugs / Hand-hooked Rugs: Both kinds of area rugs are produced in much the same way. A tufting gun that works much like an oversized sewing needle is used to push and pull threads of yarn through a scrim - a pre-woven grid foundation. With a hooked rug, the loops of yarn are left intact to form a characteristically knobby pile. In a tufted rug, the tops of loops are sheared to expose the ends of the threads for a softer and plusher pile.

Hand-woven Rugs: These area rugs are made on a cottage loom that is operated by hand. The warps are set on the loom frame and the weft is physically woven over the warp using shuttles.

Heat-Set: A process used in the machine made area rugs where the yarn is treated in "heat" chambers to "set" it. It adds texture and softness to the yarn and prevents the yarn from unravelling. Usually Heat-setting is done on finer polypropylene rugs.

Herbal Wash: This process of washing (as explained in "washing" below) is achieved by mixing natural herbs in the water. It softens the colors in the area rugs and gives them the antique look.

Indo Gabbeh 5/32 Knots: This style of hand knotting originated in the Tribal Gabbeh region of Persia. This technique has been adapted in India by using thick cotton warps and making larger knots. Designs made from this knotting system are usually tribal.

Jute: A natural fiber made from plants. This fiber is frequently used for warps and pile on flat-woven rugs, such as Jute Cotton and Kilims.

Kilim: A tapestry-like hand woven area rug.

Lines: A unique method of measuring density of area rugs that are hand made in China, and now adapted by a few other countries. By "lines" they mean how many knots or tufts to a linear foot. For example, in the Persian Dreams collection there are 160 tufts per linear foot, which makes any Persian Dream an exceptionally high quality hand tufted area rug. As a comparison good quality tufted rugs contain 80 lines.

Machine-made Rugs: These area rugs are woven on power looms. There are numerous types of power looms, each with specific capacities as to the type of designs and textures they can create. In recent years, continuing advances in technology and product innovation have greatly expanded the fashion and quality range of this category.

Merino: A breed of sheep that produces very fine wool. Originally raised in Spain, merino sheep whose wool is used in area rugs are also raised in Australia and England.

Nepalese Knot (7/18; 8/22; 9/25): This is a kind of knotting that originated from the "Tibetan knot". Tibetan area rugs are woven by wrapping a continuous length of yarn over a rod laid across the warps stretched on the loom. When the rod has been wrapped for its entire length, a knife is slid along the rod, cutting the wrapped yarn into two rows of pile tufts. In the Indo-Nepal region, where they use this Tibetan technique of knotting (thereby called the "Nepalese knot), rugs are graded using numbers, like "9/25", "7/18" or "8/22." The top number of the "fraction" represents the knots in 9/10 of an inch of the rug's width. The bottom number represents the knots in 4 1/2 inches of the rug's length. 0.9" x 4.5" equals 4.05", almost four square inches, so an easy conversion would be to multiply the two numbers together and divide by 4 (sq. in.) to get the approximate weave in knots per sq. in. For example, with a "9/25" quality area rug, 9x25=225, and 225/4=56 knots per sq. in.

New Wool: Wool that is not recycled.

Pile: The nap of the area rug.

Ply: Two or more yarns spun together.

Power-Loomed: Same as machine-made area rugs.

Points: A term frequently used to describe how many actual yarns are used in a square meter of a machine made area rug or power loomed area rug.

Polypropylene: A man made fiber extracted from petroleum. This fibre is frequently used in machine-made or power loomed area rugs. There are many different techniques to advance the quality of this fiber.

Space Dyed: A technique of dying where different sections of the same hank of wool are dyed in different tones of the same color and then the yarn from that hank is used in the area rug construction to give it a mottling or abrash effect. Abrash means color variations of the same color giving a worn antique look.

Spin: The direction of a yarn's twist.

Staple: The average length of fibers in a yarn.

Vegetable Dyes: Vegetable dyes are "Natural dyes" that are primarily produced by using various plants (or other natural minerals like iron) to make some basic colors and then mixing those colors in various proportions to create the rest of the colors. For example; color Blue is made from the Indigo plant, Brown is made from Oak bark, etc.

Warp: Comprising the structure, parallel warp yarns run the length of the area rug, and are interlaced with wefts.

Washing: A process in which an area rug is washed (typically a hand knotted or a hand tufted rug) after it is woven to soften a rug's colors and increase its luster. The water used may be treated with chemical solution or tea or herbs to give the rug a distinct effect.

Weft: The yarns woven horizontally through the warps.

Wonders of the World Titles: The names used in this area rug collection are names of cities and regions that created certain patterns of rugs from which we were inspired to produce our designs.

Worsted: A wool yarn of long staple with fibers that have been combed prior to spinning. By combing the wool, we rid the yarn of short fibers and the wool yarn obtains a greater luster.

 

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