Category Archives: History of Rugs

Guide to Organic Dyes

When you’re antique oriental rug experts, like we are at Aladdin Oriental Rug, you deal with tons of rugs made with wildly different techniques. One very commonly shared aspect of vintage oriental rugs is their use of organic dyes. Here’s a guide to natural and organic dyes used in oriental rugs.

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A Helpful Guide for Buying New Rugs

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Here’s a great guide for buying rugs, full of tips and valuable information that can help you make your decision about finding the perfect one for your home or business. Are you looking for a traditional design – or a modern one? Today, many traditional rugs blend traditional and modern patterns. Here are a list of questions that you can ask yourself to help get a picture of the kind of rugs that you should purchase.

Do you want your carpet to be more of a muted background for the room?

Match the carpet to the room’s general color – you can choose a single square of color or a subtle pattern. If the room needs a centerpiece, use a center focused medallion design – and if there’s another centerpiece in the room, use an all over design.

Do you want your carpet to be bright in it’s pattern and design?

If the room has a lot of preexisting patterns in it’s furniture or walls, it might be a tasteful choice to choose a solid color rug in a single neutral color. If you want your room to seem cozier, choose a darker color. Bright color rugs make rooms appear larger than they are.

How many people pass through the room?

Do you have children? How about pets? Rugs vary in their durability – if there’s constant traffic, wool flatweave rugs preserve very well. Busy patterns are good for camouflaging footprints and stains.

What’s your desired price range?

Wool is more expensive than cotton, but lasts much longer. Machine made rugs are cheaper than handmade ones.

Once you have an idea about the answer to these questions, it helps to know a few of these words and terms – details about the material and make of carpets.

Types of Material

 

All kinds of material have different textures and feels. It’s up to you to decide which rug material is best for your room.

Cotton

This material is easily dyed, so it’s available in a huge range of colors. It’s soft, and a more relaxed and affordable than wool. Cotton rugs are usually braided or flat-weaves.

Wool

This is the traditional material choice for rugs. It’s durable, soft on feet, and as time passes takes on a finish that contributes to it’s surrounding environment. These rugs are thicker than those of other materials. Wool from sheep raised in high altitudes have the strongest fiber. These rugs are best when they get professionally cleaned.

Seagrass, Sisal, and Jute

These materials are durable and perfect for floor coverings. Sisal is the strongest. while Jute is the softest. None of them are as soft as cotton or wool – but they boast special textures that other materials can’t quite match. If you’re allergic to wool, these rugs are an excellent choice – however they should be protected from both the sun and damp environments. These rugs are not easily cleaned.

Polypropylene

This synthetic fabric is stain-resistant, making it a good choice for outdoor rugs.

Silk and Viscose

This material is usually blended with wool in combination rugs – the addition of this material often contributes to the design by adding a light quality.

Types of Weaving Patterns

 

Hand Knotted

This pattern is complicated, and takes artisans much labor and maneuver. The pile is made by knotting yarn around pairs of warps all along the rug’s length. Both the asymmetric/open Persian knot and the symmetric Turkish knot patterns can be used. The more individual knots, the more long-lasting the rug will be.

Tufted

This pattern can be completed by people or machinery – it involves loops being pulled through a attached backing material and trimmed to make a smooth surface. Then another layer is connected to the back of the rug to hold all the loops in place.

Hooked

Similarly to in tufted rugs, yarn is here attached to a backing under an additional cloth layer – however the pile is not cut to create a smooth appearance.

Flatweave

This rug doesn’t have any knots or any pile – these rugs are created on looms and put through warps.

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Most Expensive Rugs Sold

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Value in Handmade, Traditional Distinction

Well made carpets or rugs contribute huge amounts of beauty to the decor of any abode or business. With their patterns, colors, and designs, rugs add to the aesthetic of any surrounding furniture, and completes a space really well without being overwhelming. They add a sense of vitality and life to homes – and their placement inside living rooms, the traditional center of family life, can really contribute to the emotional and performative dynamic of homes.

It would be totally logical to assume that these rare rugs cost more than the Home Depot machine manufactured alternative. Oriental and Persian rugs are inherently valuable and pricey do to their intricate craftsmanship and limited availability. It’s no surprise that these rugs often sell for lofty price points comparable to rare artworks or sculptures – that’s because these rugs demonstrate the attention to detail that goes into any special work of art.

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How to Preserve Your Rug

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If you have a rare  or antique rug, it helps to be aware of environmental or incidental stresses that can cause the color and texture of your rug to be damaged. By avoiding the following, you can preserve the structural integrity, sheen, color, and texture for years to come.

Sunlight / UV Light / Heat

Sunlight will cause the irreversible fading of color and make fibers degrade faster. If you are placing a rug by direct sunlight, your windows should be fit with 100% UV protective glass.

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On the spot Carpet Cleaning

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When spills happen, it’s always best to react quickly and treat the carpet as soon as humanly possible. Immediate treatment of the stain is the foundational approach to preventing stains – its rate of efficacy is incredibly high; the sooner after the spill the better. There’s a number of tactics you can employ that – while being technically simple – are incredibly effective at removing stains. Different simple cleaners made from household products are most effective on different kinds of stains, depending on their origin. Below Aladdin Oriental Rug will tackle the step for on the spot Carpet Cleaning.

First step, Blotting On the spot Carpet Cleaning

With a clean cloth saturated in cleaning solution, blot the stain, and dry 30with an outside-in-motion. Rinse the area completely and thoroughly with clean water, and blot/rinse a few more times. It’s important that you never scrub your rug or carpet – this can damage their fibers as well as letting the spill soak all the way down to the carpet’s interior pad.

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Persian Rugs

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 History of Persian Rugs

Historical records document the notable role Persian rugs and textiles  played as commodities in the international marketplace. As the interests of European and Eastern countries shifted towards trade and economic expansion, textiles became major boons for solidifying local luxury economies.

During the 15-1600s, raw silk and finely woven textiles were a major source of income for the Persian crown; the consistent stability of this market was disrupted by intense European competition in the 1700s- where extreme European export disrupted the international trade market. Over time, finished carpets replaced raw textiles as the major profit-drawing export, and European investors heavily increased commercial production of carpets in the East to meet demand – these are the Persian rugs most commonly familiar today.

 Timeline of Persian Rug

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama finds new route oceanic route from Europe to the East

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