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RugStore: The Rugs of America
The birth of American rug: As result of colonization a tremendous changes took place, in the art, culture and literature. The early settlers of the colonies are from England, they carried with them the technique of weaving and this art flourished through out northeastern shores of America and south eastern Canada. American has their great part in teaching the technique of hand hooked rugs and it became a cottage industry in colonial America.
With basic idea of saving and reusing the raw material hand hook rugs came into existence. These rugs are produced to meet the requirement of economic necessity and to have the best utility. Hand hook rugs become popular due to its affordability and to its easy manufacturing process.
Hand hooked rugs
The hand hooked rugs has the simple geometric forms with the primary colors like reds, blues, greens, blacks, whites, rich browns and grays, to color these rugs natural coloring material like berries, grapes, tree barks, roots, and other natural substances are used. The design in the rug are flowers and floral patterns, single leaves and buds, sprigs, bouquets in baskets, wreaths, medallions, and borders, either alone or intertwined, with scroll, vine and so on.
Navajo rug
After hand hooked rug, next comes the Native American rug know as Navajo rug. These are the rugs woven by native Navajo people, for centuries they are in to flat-weaves. After 1800s the design used had changed, new patterns in rug are introduced to suit the growing demand. Navajo rug are categories in to four categories depending on the weave used Chief blankets, Serape blankets, Eye Dazzler weavings, and fabrics after 1890.
Chief blankets are amongst the well-known Navajo blankets, they are made of longer width than the length. They have horizontal, wide stripes and minor stripes at end of the blanket and a similar wide strip in the center. These wide end and center stripes are colored in red and brown; sometimes blue was added. White and brown stripes are seen between the wide center and at end of the major stripes. Chief blankets went through three different phases.
First Phase Chief Blankets, are produced between 1800 and 1860, it had stripes as design. In the second phase (1850-1865), rectangular shapes were introduced within the wide stripes on the top, center, and bottom of the blankets. The third phase blankets are produced between 1860 and 1880, these blanket consisted large diamond design in the center of the blanket over the middle stripe and four diamonds at each corners and a half diamond in the middle of each side.
Serape blankets are another type of Navajo blanket produced from 1830s to 1870s. These blankets are long rather than wide. The designs are combination of diamonds, zigzags, and stripes. The colors used in Serape blankets included red, beige, blue, yellow and sometimes black.
Eye-Dazzler blanket are made using machine-spun yarn. Since the yarn was manufactured in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the blankets were sometimes referred as the Germantown Eye-Dazzler blankets. The designs are diamonds and triangles with toothed edges. By 1890, Navajo rugs used Pictorial designs on the rugs leaving behind the geometrical design these gained reputation among the traders.
American rugs have its own
style; sometime we could witness the floral design on the rugs, this
show the influence of the oriental rugs on American rugs.