About the Weave Rug Company

The development and production process involved with the making of our carpets reflects not just a story of how each carpet is made in rural India but also how the process includes a well-adjusted and fairly balanced trade partnership involving both ends of the supply chain.

This considered, we aim to provide as much transparency as possible to our production process which in turn best reflects the entire production process involved in making a handmade designer carpets. By doing this we hope to highlight the benefits brought on all fronts for the weavers, our own business and yours – the customer.

Fundamental to our supply chain is the magnificent work being undertaken by traditionally agricultural dependent villages comminutes of rural India.
Achieving this objective is done so by skill building and skill up-gradation training to those artisans associated or who desire to be associated with the carpet weaving trade and by the provision of such a means a substantially increased and stabilised level of dependable incomes.

Needless to say, income-generating opportunities at the doorsteps of artisans residing in the remotest of the locations carries a lot of significance in poverty alleviation and not least the skill development landscape due to the provision of livelihood opportunities to often illiterate and poor people at their own doorstep. As the process of weaving carpets does not require massive infrastructure establishment at local levels, it empowers the workers to acquire traditional skills within their own village – which in turn serves as an essential work opportunities without the pressure on the villagers to actually migrate out from their villages into larger towns or cities for the quest of other, often non skilled based employment.
Transport of the raw materials and finished goods is also taken care of by sending the raw materials out to the villages and bringing back the weaved products, thus relieving the artisans of the burden of spending their own time and resources traveling into towns to sell their goods. Furthermore, flexible working hours and output based wages enhance livelihood and living standard options as per their needs.

For a better understanding to the production process of our carpets we have put together a summarised series of the procedures and circumstances involved for the production of our carpets and rugs.

The wool is first locally produced by the Bikaner sheep – greatly favoured by artesian weavers in Indian for centuries. The hard wearing but soft to touch properties of the Bikaner wool also benefits from an excellent dye absorption capacity thus making it an ideal choice for vibrant contemporary carpets which in turn supports the stunning creativity of the designers work by adding a luxurious sheen to the finished carpets. 

Rural Rajasthan – India.  The spring wool is sheared locally before grading.
Carding is then undertaken to disentangle, clean and intermixes the fibers to produce a continuous web of fine wool mesh or web.
The webbing process is achieved by passing the fibers between differentially moving surfaces. The process breaks up the unorganised clumps of fibre and aligns the materials as individual fibres to be pulled and drawn parallel with each other, notably all by hand. Following the carding process the villagers set about  hand spinning the wool whereby the wool fibre is sought to be converted by the twisting together of drawn out strands of fibres to form the yarn. The spinning wheel device an imaginative use of re-cycled bicycle wheel with the occasional application of the spinner’s foot to create a truly creative gearing technique.

After the carding and spinning process is complete the wool is then collected from the village to be taken to for cleaning and dying by the master dyers. The wools are batch dyed in vats before being brought out into the open air for sun-drying.

Mapping is the process of transferring the carpets design into a numerical knotting sequence for the weavers to follow, with each number relating to the colour of yarn to be knotted. The map is then then printed off (in its numerical format) with several different coloured sample pieces of wool attached to serve as a reference and instruction to the weaver, thereby telling the weaver the colour of yarn to weave – and importantly when to do it.

The completed maps, dyed wools and any other possible materials that may go into the carpets construction such as silk, is then returned to the rural villages where the weaving process commences

The weaving process is thereafter commenced by the village weavers, invariably the weaving is undertaken by women who then set about the very time consuming process of tying each piece of pile to the carpet between the weft and weave otherwise known as the foundation.

The knotting process for each piece of pile is not too dissimilar to that of tying a shoe lace. This process is repeated horizontally before the knots are batted down with a heavy hand held comb to compress the knots together into a very firm well locked and upright manner, each strand of yarn is then cut off with a hook like knife which in turn leaves a single pile.

This entire process is repeated along the length of the rug in a horizontal manner until each line is complete the next line up and above it is commenced. As an approximate idea of knot count we typically see something in the order of approximately 120 knots to one given square inch. A very typical 300x200cm  carpet would usually take two weavers around 6 months to complete.

In terms of payment the weavers typically earn about 250 India Rupees a day – this currently equates about £2.30 GBP.  As the weavers actually get paid on a per production basis this amount can vary a fair bit.   Although the earnings are a far cry from anything like the UK’s minimum wage it is however, a regular form of non-agriculturally dependant income- in turn providing opportunities for the weavers to save and re-invest back into their own local infrastructure.

Other benefits to the weavers include the provision of Artisan Cards which are issued to the weavers by the Indian Governments Development Commissioner for Handicrafts. These cards in turn enable the weavers to receive a form of identity as skilled artisans entitling them to various benefits associated with the program. Being in possession of the cards doesn’t just offer a sense of personal empowerment it also opens many other door and avenues, for example having the card demonstrates a skill and dependable income – thus loans for schooling, medical care and many more aspirations can be legitimately considered.

Traditionally in many parts of India the matter of financial inclusion has been a major social mobilisation gap for the development of rural communities with only a very small number of people being able to derive benefits from banking services.

Regarding the general health of the artisan weavers the Health Camps are routinely organised in villages in partnership with local healthcare providers and healthcare innovators. The poorest members of the village community are given access to expert check-ups and treatment at their doorstep. Those with severe health issues are in turn referred to specialized hospitals for proper medical care.