Pakistan
PAKISTAN
GHAZNI
Although the producer of these rugs is based in Lahore many of the looms are scattered through Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Caucasus as the weavers are exclusively Turkoman in origin. Their weaving history goes back many hundreds of years and are by far the most skillful artisans when utilizing hand-spun yarns and vegetable dyes. The wool for these amazing rugs comes from the northern Afghan province of Ghazni where the sheep produce a long staple and lustrous wool due to the cool temperatures found on the mountain pastures in this region most suitable for these age old techniques. We avoid the purchase of Chobi grade which tends to use local Pakistan wools which are too short a staple for this type of rug.
VERY FINE PAK-PERSIANS
The description "very fine" refers to the number of knots per square inch in these superb examples of the weaver's art. This means there are 30,000 knots in a square foot! Labour spent on a piece is measured in 'dehari' which is one day's weaving, which equates to around 6000 knots. A 12' x 9' rug would take in excess of 600 dehari (days) to weave. On a rug 12' x 9’ there would be four weavers working, so they would take 150 days working together to weave this size. Designs in these rugs are nearly always Persian in origin. However, do not consider these pieces mere copies as when the Aryans subjugated these countries they left behind the art and skill to produce these rugs locally, which is enhanced by the indigenous peoples. Also found here are the finest hand-spun vegetable dyes in the world. Hand-spun wool being much chunkier than its machine-spun counterpart means one can only pack in the knots to a certain density. This is around 18 x 18 knots per square inch. These very fine vegetable dyes called Haji Jalili are named after a famous 19th century Persian Kashan weaver and are reproductions of his exclusive patterns.
KAZAKS
We take two qualities in our Kazak rugs. Firstly, both use hand-spun yarns and vegetable dye colours. We do a 9 x 9 knots per square inch quality which although a low knot count is more than compensated by the chunkiness of the hand-spun yarns which means the knots pack in very well giving a very hardy rug at a great price. The finer Kazaks have a 12 x 12 count which makes for a beautiful and lustrous carpet. Kazaks are one of the earliest known rugs, used by the 16th Century Dutch painter Holbein in many of his pictures as table rugs.
