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

Carpets And Rugs

Fortunately, there are not many more than a half dozen fundamental types, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility for the layman to learn enough about carpets to be able to place machine-made carpets in their proper class, irrespective of their tradename.

The main types of carpet on the market today are: Oriental, European hand-tufted, Axininster, Velvet, Wilton, Tapestry, Brussels and Chenille. Tngrain, the carpet of our grandfathers, is rapidly disappearing from homes in this country, because of its poor wearing qualities and its inferior appearance and therefore will not be covered in this book.

Of the hand-made carpets the Oriental is commercially by far the most important, as it is only in the Orient that hand-made carpets can be woven at a cost that will permit pricing within the reach of any large number of people. In Austria, Germany, Holland, France, England, Spain and Italy many fine hand-tufted rugs are made, but they are too expensive for stock weaving and therefore are limited to special orders. In the special-order field, however, they have an advantage over the machine-made carpets in quality and often in cost as well.

Axminster was originally a hand-made carpet but at the present time it is all made by machine. The rest of the carpets listed above are all machine-made. They differ from one another in the materials used, methods employed in weaving and limitations as to colors, sizes, etc. Each one of these principal types is taken up separately later on.

Oriental Carpets

In the days before the carpet industry of the Orient was commercialized, the Oriental made carpets for his own use, as gifts to his friends, or as offerings to his gods. Under these conditions it was natural that greater artistic ability and skill obtained than under present commercial conditions, because the carpet makers then put their souls into their work, and the whole idea was to produce a fine carpet, while now it is merely a question of making money.

It has been marvelled by some that an art such as carpet making which has been in constant and increasing application, could at the same time lose many of its finer points. It does seem strange that certain branches of the art have become extinct and certain practices entirely lost, while there has been no interruption in the production of carpets since the time in which these various lost practices were in common use.