My Love Affair with Weaving

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Fiber artists can be found around the world, using all kinds of fibers from wool to silk to bamboo and hemp, just to name a few. The styles of items produced are as varied as the artists themselves, from elaborate fabric designs, baskets to complex hand knotted rugs. It is an ancient skill that was very useful for clothing, coverings for tents, ship sails and more.

My first experience with weaving came in the form of a Christmas gift from my parents—a Lionel Porter Science kit of a loom modeled by those used in the industrial revolution. So I put the loom together and wove runners and small rugs for my dolls.

I really did not get back into weaving again until my husband and I were doing archaeology in Tennessee and we were gifted a large barn frame loom that was literally stored in a barn.

That began my love affair with weaving that ultimately resulted in six looms. We recently downsized and I am down to one floor loom, a table loom and a journey loom. Still weaving and spinning after all these years, my upstairs loom room looks like a yarn store!

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Going Green with a Hand Knotted Rug

For many, going green means recycling, composting and mass transit. Now, hand knotted rugs want to declare themselves among that list.

Gabby loves to crawl on the rug. It's soft and warm.

Five quick reasons why hand knotted rugs can help you go green:

1. Buying a quality hand knotted carpet means it’s lasting you for generations. Literally. No filling the landfill with cheap throw-aways that never clean up nicely and show wear and tear in two seconds.

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Natural Dye for Eggs and Rugs

The natural dye on the eggs goes well with this Persian rug.

Have you ever tried your hand at dyeing eggs with natural dyes?

Naturally dyeing eggs is truly a labor of love. It speaks to my instilled love for eating healthy. Collecting and prepping all the ingredients like onion peels, purple cabbage and chopped beets shows dedication. Allowing the eggs to simmer in their dye bath for 30 minutes or even overnight for truly stunning deep colors is worth the wait.

When I look at our naturally dyed Chobi Tribal rugs and our Kazak Tribals, I have a new appreciation for the amount of work that goes into producing one of these rugs.

Naturally dyed chobi rugs are roughly 100 knots per square inch but take the same amount of production time as their Persian counterparts at over 500 knots per square inch.

The preparation for getting a Chobi on the loom is over half of the time needed for the rug’s production, where as it takes less than 10% of the total production time of a Persian to get it on the loom.

What takes so much time to get a Chobi on a loom?

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Celebrating Rug Making

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A wonderful night celebrating rug making and the joy and relaxation of adult coloring!

Over 30 coloring fans gathered at the Bunyaad Rug Room at Ten Thousand Villages in Ephrata, PA, to learn how fairly paid adult artisans carefully color intricate graphs as part of the rug making process. After a short journey through talams, rug graphs and hand knotting rugs, each person got to color their own rug graph tile.

“I came for the coloring but I leave with a much greater appreciation for hand knotted rugs and the quality and uniqueness that fair trade produces,” remarked one coloring night participant. “And I’m still in awe of how many knots are in a 9’x12′ Persian rug…over seven million! Just hard to believe that that many knots are all tied by hand!”

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Bright Colors, Intricate Designs and Fair Trade

Bold design Persian

The new rug shipment just arrived and we are amazed. Bunyaad rug artisans in Pakistan keep surprising us over and over again.

You would think that we’d know what to expect when we open the bales. Craftsmanship and quality of wool and colors are always high. Yet this newest shipment shows again the incredible artistry of the rug artisans we work with.