Designing Handmade Rugs

"An award-winning designer offers advice on gathering inspiration from the world and translating it into a rug design. Information on choosing durable, eco-friendly materials and dyes is given, along with ideas for creating art together through rug making workshops and parties." -Back cover.

- How to create a variety of different design elements that can be combined to make all kinds of hooked rugs - A unique approach to rug design, emphasizing modular design elements--simple and complex shapes, motifs, and borders--that the reader can mix and match to create unique rug art - Advice for gathering inspiration from the world and translating it into a rug design - Includes step-by-step instructions for basic rug hooking techniques and expert advice on tools and materials

The handmade rug industry has gone through a revolution in the last twenty-five years, and no one is better placed to explain how and why than Fritz Langauer and Ernst Swietly, who have been buying, making, collecting and writing about rugs for over fifty years. Rugs are now being made in colours and designs unimagined just a few decades ago. This new book is the only title available that shows how carpet making has changed in all traditional rug making nations as well as demonstrating through images of rugs in interior settings how the style and use of rugs has changed. Carpets carry many unspoken narratives about peoples and places - this new book reveals some of these for the first time thanks to the first-hand experience of the authors in the souks and bazars of the Middle East. AUTHORS: Ernst Anton Swietly grew up in a family that had just one single carpet. It was rolled out only once a year, during the Christmas holidays, and on each 7 January, the carpet was rolled up and hidden behind a box until next Christmas. Since then, for Ernst, carpets have been a symbol of peaceful, warm, cosy family get-togethers. Later on, Ernst A. Swietly - a journalist for fifty years - travelled the carpet-producing countries of the world discovering the secrets of handmade weaving and their design principles. This is how he met Fritz Langauer, and they realised it was time to write a book on the carpet world of the 21st century. Fritz Langauer is the son of the businessman Friedrich Langauer who, with his cousin, Adolf Böhm, founded Adil Besim OHG immediately after the Second World. As one of the sons of the two founders, Fritz Langauer joined the company in 1957. With its five branches, a carpet laundry and repair workshop, it developed over the years to become one of the largest department stores in Europe. SELLING POINTS: * For the first time, a lavishly illustrated book shows how traditional handmade rugs and carpets have become vehicles for contemporary trends and used in interior design and home decoration * The authors' work in journalism and rug production over the last fifty years equips them with the experiences of the travel writer and the specialist knowledge of leaders in the global rug market * The developments in the weaving industry in India, Iran, Turkey, China, Turkmenistan, Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan are reviewed as well as the historical and cultural context for change in a book that shines a light on the contemporary rug market in the 21st century 350 colour and 20 b/w photographs

Learn the art of designing and making a Nordic traditions rya rug. With this book, you can make authentic, heirloom-quality rya rugs without a loom or special equipment and enjoy them as art on the walls, floors, beds, and more. Ryas have a long history. In the days of the Vikings, ryas were woven on looms with a wool pile that gave warm insulation in the cold winters as warm cloaks on a freezing sea, sleigh blankets, and as bed coverings. After World War II, Nordic countries marketed their signature crafts around the world. They wove backings, spun hardy rya yarns, and designed kits easily made by beginners. These industries thrived throughout the midcentury modern era, but suddenly supplies became difficult to find when fashions trends changed. From the late 1970s to recent times, not only supplies, but experienced teachers were very hard to find. Melinda Purcell Byrd was born into a rya rug family. Her grandparents, Bill and Angelina Lundgren from Northboro, Massachusetts began importing Swedish rya supplies the year she was born. They established a thriving business by providing kits and custom designs in rya across the United States. Melinda designed and made her first when she was 11 years old. After college, she worked with her grandparents as designer, teacher, and business manager becoming proficient in all things rya. After fashions trends changed, Lundgren Rya, along with dozens of other suppliers in the USA and Europe closed their doors.Thirty years later Byrd has used her experience and the Internet to revive rya rug making and provide a resource for currently available supplies as well as teach how to use them. In her book, history of how this craft began, thrived, and was nearly lost is shared. She demystifies the designing process and gives detailed examples of various designing techniques for right-brained and left-brained thinkers. You'll find personal story profiles of other rya pilgrims, innovators, and visionaries to inspire you. Full of colorful illustrative photos by award-winning photographer, Ken Koons, this book will move you to join the rya rug revival and make your own rya rugs!

Hooked rugs were first created in the 19th century as a thrifty way to reuse fabric. Today, there's renewed interest in this eco-friendly craft, and in this information-packed book you can learn how to create your own modern work of rug art.

Although rugs woven in the classical style are still popular, it is the new wave of contemporary rug designers from the last ten years who are making news in the style and design magazines. Contemporary Rugs: Art and Design, by leading British rug designers Christopher Farr and Matthew Bourne, and Fiona Leslie of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the first book to explore the very best modern rug design from around the world. Some of the most renowned names in modern art and design, from Picasso to Frank Lloyd Wright, have at some point in their careers turned their hand to rug design. Today, designers such as Romeo Gigli, Kate Blee, Ou Baholyodin and Rifat Ozbek are pushing the medium to its limits with an often vibrant play of pattern and texture; these designers are creating both chic tone-setters for a room and unique works of art. The book begins by looking at the evolution of rug design over the last 100 years, before displaying the work of over 50 contemporary international designers. With an illustrated technical glossary and an invaluable international directory of sources, Contemporary Rugs: Art and Design provides simply the most encyclopaedic and authoritative reference available on the subject. Contemporary Rugs: Art and Design is a beautifully illustrated and timely presentation, indispensable to designers, collectors, fashion and art students, galleries, auction houses, architects, artists, and anyone interested in textile design.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter VII THE HOOKED RUG IN COTTON AND WOOL WE may safely say that the hooked rug or the pulled rug, as it is sometimes called, is the most important of the handmade rugs. It has been more successfully developed under new conditions of craftsmanship than any other of the old-fashioned rugs. In nearly all the show rooms of the Arts and Crafts Societies there are examples of it in charming colors and appropriate designs. Two village industries have been started to make it; one in the mountains of New Hampshire and one at Cranberry Island, near North East Harbor, Maine. Besides these two industries there are many isolated workers making successful hooked rugs. The larger industries have been placed on a sound financial basis, and the workers who are mostly women are extremely well paid. These women of the New England farms have been associated with this style of rug and its traditions for several generations. They are nearly all familiar with the gentle art of hooking and have therefore helped to revive this branch of craftsmanship in this section of the country. While they are familiar with the technique of hooked rugs, they have not been able to give their products a market value, because they could not plan them from the standard of modern craftsmanship without the knowledge of design and color arrangement. I remember the first time I saw a hooked rug. I at once realized that in its technique were the possibilities for the development of a crafts-manlike rug. Though certainly the appearance of the one I first saw was anything but hopeful. It came from Prince Edward Island, Canada. The maker had evidently been carried away by the enthusiasm for her skill in hooking and had ingenuously and likewise ingeniously, worked in a pattern of...

The basics and equipment needed for rug hooking, with examples of rugs, hangings, and other items based on drawings and primitive art. (Does not include charted patterns.)