The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Carpets And Rugs

It is interesting to note that in general the cheaper the carpet, the greater the labor and care involved in preparing for the weaving process. At least it is true that Tapestry Brussels and Tapestry Velvet carpets require greater care in the preparation of the pile threads for weaving, than any other type of carpet. First of all the wool must be carefully selected and spun in such a way as to obtain as great a degree of uniformity as possible, because any appreciable difference in the stretching qualities of the completed threads will affect the accuracy of the design.

In making both Tapestry and Velvet carpets, long staple worsted with a very slight twist in the redoubling is used. The most interesting part of the process is the printing. The woolen threads after having been properly spun, washed and dried, are wound carefully onto large printing drums, care being taken not to strain the threads unduly in the winding, and at the same time to maintain a constant tension, or pull, on them.

Printing

IN the printing process, the drum is first covered with a sheet of oil cloth over which the thread is wound in a single evenly spaced layer. The drum itself is equipped with a number of notches, each one of which represents a definite distance along the thread. Each notch is numbered so as to enable the printer to turn the drum to any desired position, using the numbers as an index. Below the drum is mounted a carrier device which permits the moving across the bottom of the drum of a pan full of printing dye, equipped with a rubber roller. The face of this roller is of such width as to print a strip, the length of which on the thread corresponds to the length represented by one notch on the drain index.