All our carpets benefit from the ancestral skills used by the craftspeople in our workshops located principally in northern India, according to the techniques of hand-knotted velvet carpets on vertical looms, hand-tufted on cotton canvas or hand-woven on horizontal looms.
HAND-KNOTTED
The traditional way of making velvet carpets has remained almost unchanged for centuries; the carpets are worked on vertical looms by skilled artisans.
The full-scale drawing on graph paper (each square represents a knot) is entirely marked out and coloured by hand, point by point.
The knotter follows this drawing with the loom, knotting the appropriate strands of wool or viscose onto the warp threads to form a row of loops around a rod. These are packed down with a mallet and the loops are cut to create the velvet pile of the carpet.
The carpet is then carefully hand-washed to enhance the softness and shine of the velvet pile, and finally left to dry.
HAND-TUFTED
This craft process was introduced more recently; it is worked on cotton canvas on which the pattern has been drawn previously.
The artisan uses a 'tufting gun' to push strands of wool or viscose through the canvas with great accuracy, skillfully following the outline of the pattern.
In the case of sculptured carpets, the strands are tufted at maximum height and then carefully 'sculpted' by a carver using scissors.
The back of the carpet is then coated with latex to fix the strands and the backing is added.
The carpet is then finished off (brushed, sculptured, sheared to trim the surface level and edges overlocked).
HAND-WOVEN
The weave is identical to that in tapestry and is worked on horizontal looms.
The drawing is painted onto paper or canvas and positioned under the threads so it can be followed by the weavers.
Several processes are grouped under this technique, such as hand loom weaving on mechanical looms to create simple geometric patterns and loom knotted/hardback weaving that enables carpets to be finished without a textile backing, for greater fineness and flexibility.
All these weaving methods give widely diverse appearances and attractive effects.
