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Celebrating Rug Making

ByBunyaad

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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

ByBunyaad

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.

RenoStaff
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Ephrata Rug Room under Renovation

ByBunyaad

RenoStaffThe Bunyaad Rug Room at Ten Thousand Villages in Ephrata is under a major renovation… painting, new flooring, the works!… but guess who is doing most of the reno…. Rug Room staff! We are finding that many of our staff have incredible hidden skills in painting tedious edges, organizing major fixture moves and otherwise keeping after a group of willing painters!

Reno started today (updates being posted on our facebook page) and we quickly found that keeping after desk work while painting was quite difficult, especially when we had to disconnect our internet downstairs in order to paint the wall behind the router. 🙂 We will be closing this Saturday, August 1, at 3 p.m. so that we can really start making some major messes… and then we will reopen on Saturday, August 8 at 10 a.m.

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Peoples Lives are Entwined in each Bunyaad Rug

ByBunyaad

Razia teaching Gwen how to knot rugsGwen Repeta, manager of the Ten Thousand Villages store in Winnipeg, MB and Rug Program Coordinator for Ten Thousand Villages Canada, joined us on our two-week trip to Pakistan this past January. This is Gwen’s second trip to visit the Bunyaad artisans (her first in May 2005). Gwen’s long-term commitment to the program showed in her interaction with the artisans and deep interest in wanting to learn more about how Fair Trade really works.