Carding is the process of combing and cleaning the wool. Since wool is the basic raw material for carpet making, it should fine and clean. In an effective carding, no fiber is intermingled with another and all foreign particles and dirt are removed. This helps in spinning, blending and wool mixing if necessary. Nowadays, carding is also done using machines. However, we choose to rely on hand carding.
After carding, the wool fibers are drawn and twisted to make yarns of desired thickness. This process is called spinning. The yarn of soft 5-7 twist per inch is said to be ideal for carpets. Spinning is a traditional skill of Nepalese people. So generally wool is spun by hands.
Though hand-spun yarns have uneven structure, it supports special look in a carpet. To obtain even yarns of desired thickness, wool should be well carded. These days, machines are also being used for spinning as it is more efficient.
Dyeing wool is quite a complicated process. It needs a lot of attention and experience to obtain wool of desired colour. The wool can be dyed either using natural dyes or synthetic dyes, both have good and adverse effect. Using natural dyes is more complicated and the colours obtained are not that brilliant, but it promotes special textures of carpets and it is less environment polluting. In the other hand, synthetic dyes give bright colours with various shades easily which is not possible with natural dyes.So commonly azo-free chemical dyes are used but natural dyes are also used whenever demanded.
The real making of carpets begins with weaving. Since our carpets are hand woven, it is very time consuming and laborious. A good weaver can weave about 4.5 square meter in one month. The Nepalese carpets are woven in simple vertical loom. While weaving, a row of pile yarns are knotted to the wrap yarns firstly. Next two weft yarns are woven through the wrap. The knots and weft yarns are then packed down tightly on previously woven rows with a comb-like device. After knotting several rows, ends of pile yarns are cut to create an even rug surface. The knotting process is then repeated. The knot density of a Nepalese carpet ranges from 40 to 125 knots per square inch. However, the most common knot density of our carpets are 60, 80 and 100 knots per square inch.
After a carpet is woven it is washed to remove dirt and to restore the original shine of the wool. Earlier, the washing needed to be done in Europe. However, now we have our own washing plant in Kathmandu. The washing plant has a capacity of 8000 square meter/month.
When it comes to prestige oriental rugs, we send them out to Flat Rate Carpet, our fellow rug cleaners in New York who specializes in rug repair & restoration for fine oriental rugs. They have the right products & tools along with high insurance to handle delicate and expensive rugs. Also, they own special machines for balancing the ph in the water which prevents the silk from changing colors. Unfortunately, Some of their equipment is just not available here in Katmandu.
After washing and drying, the carpets are stretched from all of four sides. This helps in maintaining the shape of the rug.
Finally the carpet has to be trimmed by hands. Trimmers with specially designed flat scissors cut the pile until right length. Trimming is a very delicate process because one false cut can ruin the whole carpet. After finishing the carpet is ready to be shipped.
