The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Theory Of Decoration
The process of manufacture is very simple. The design is outlined on a piece of coarse sacking or burlap, and the strips of rags, either cotton or wool, hooked through it to form the pattern. The projecting ends of the strips form the pile. Designs were most varied, including floral, patriotic and geometrical types. Houses and ships were sometimes shown, in a manner similar to the samplers of the period. The coloring was soft and delicate in the earlier examples, stronger and cruder in the later ones. The outline of the rugs was sometimes rectangular, but often round or elliptical.
Braided Rugs are made of strips of rag sewed together into long bands. Three bands are braided together, and the braid is sewed in spiral form, making a round or oval shape. Crocheted and Knitted Rugs are made in the same manner as ordinary crocheting or knitting, strips of cloth being used in place of yarn. Like hooked and braided rugs, these are essentially a rural home industry. All the rag rugs, particularly the hand-made varieties, have great usefulness in furnishing country cottages and small informal homes of English or Colonial character.
Choice of Floor Coverings
A few general principles must be borne in mind in the choice of rugs. Generally speaking, they are to be used as a floor-covering, forming the background for furniture and persons. For this reason, their color and design should not be too striking. On the other hand, as they often are very visible, and sometimes form the chief decoration of a room, a certain degree of elaboration is permissible.
As to design, they should above all be conventional rather than naturalistic. Nothing is more objectionable than a rug treated pictorially or one decorated with large and very lifelike flowers. Oriental rugs never fall into this error, but are always treated in view of their function, and any natural forms that may be used are so conventionally treated as to take their proper place in the design.
