Rug Making

A rug is a textile piece used primarily as a floor covering or decorative feature. Unlike a fitted carpet, a rug does not extend wall to wall and is not affixed permanently to the floor. Rugs have been produced for centuries across numerous cultures, serving both functional and aesthetic purposes. Their manufacture reflects regional materials, craftsmanship traditions, and social practices, ranging from simple domestic creations made from household scraps to highly valued woven or knotted pieces crafted by professional artisans.

Characteristics and Uses of Rugs

Rugs are typically portable, allowing them to be moved, cleaned, or replaced with relative ease compared to fixed carpets. They may serve practical functions such as insulating a floor, reducing noise, or protecting surfaces, but they also hold significant decorative value, often featuring elaborate patterns, motifs, and colour schemes. Historically, rug-making has been closely tied to domestic craft traditions, textile production, and regional heritage.

Braided Rugs

Braided rugs are among the most recognisable forms of traditional textile craft, especially within North American folk traditions. They are made using three or more strips of fabric, most often wool, with raw edges folded toward the centre before braiding. The braided strips are then laced together to form the rug. Oval braided rugs require careful proportional planning; for instance, in a 2-by-4-foot rug, the central braid must be approximately twenty-two inches long to maintain shape and symmetry. Additional strips are sewn onto the braid as construction progresses, ensuring continuity of pattern and material.

Hooked Rugs

Hooked rugs represent a long-established craft in which loops of yarn or fabric are pulled through a stiff open-weave backing such as burlap, linen, monks’ cloth, or rug warp. This is accomplished using a hook mounted in a handle, commonly made of wood, to allow leverage and ease of manipulation. Designs may range from simple geometric patterns to intricate pictorial representations, depending on the skill of the maker and the density of the hooked loops. Hooked rug traditions spread widely in North America and parts of Western Europe, becoming a popular domestic art form in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Rag Rugs

Rag rugs utilise leftover textiles, making them an enduring example of household thrift and resourcefulness. Constructed typically on a sacking or hessian base, rag rugs were widespread during the Industrial Revolution, when textile offcuts became more readily available. By the 1920s, the craft declined in many areas as mass-produced floor coverings became more accessible, although it persisted in regions where economic necessity or cultural tradition reinforced its practice. The economic pressures of the Second World War temporarily revived rag rug production, though the resurgence was short-lived. Rag rugs vary in technique and appearance, reflecting local customs and the materials at hand.

Prodded (Proddy) Rugs

Proddy rugs are created by pushing or prodding strips of fabric through a backing of hessian or linen, working from the reverse side of the rug. This produces a shaggy, textured pile on the upper surface. Such rugs were often used as door mats or in high-traffic household areas where their deep pile effectively concealed dirt. Regional terminology developed around this craft; for example, in Northumberland they are called proggy mats, and in Scotland clootie mats. These names highlight the strong local identities associated with rug-making traditions. Museums documenting rural life and domestic crafts often preserve examples of proddy rugs and the tools used to make them.

Woven Rugs

Woven rugs include both flat-woven and pile-woven varieties. Flat-woven rugs, such as kilims, are produced without a pile by interlacing warp and weft threads, allowing for bold geometric designs. Knotted-pile rugs, on the other hand, are created by knotting short lengths of yarn around warp threads and securing them with rows of weft. The density of knots is a significant determinant of quality: higher knot counts allow for more detailed designs and are associated with greater craftsmanship.
Woven rugs may be handmade or machine-made. Handwoven examples from regions such as the Caucasus, Persia, Central Asia, and Anatolia have historically achieved high artistic and economic value. For instance, rugs produced in nineteenth-century Ganja, in present-day Azerbaijan, are noted for their traditional patterns and weaving techniques. Factors influencing the value of a woven rug include age, material quality, rarity of design, and knot density.

Materials and Craft Traditions

Rug-making incorporates a wide range of materials, including wool, cotton, linen, silk, and increasingly synthetic fibres. Wool remains the most common traditional material due to its durability, natural resilience, and dye retention. The craft techniques, whether braiding, hooking, prodding, or weaving, depend on the properties of the fibres used and the tools available to the maker.
Rug-making has played an important role in domestic economies and cultural practices. Many households relied on rug-making to repurpose worn clothing and textiles, turning them into durable household items. In artisan contexts, rug production developed into a specialised trade that contributed to regional economies and cultural identity.