Rug Making in America

I am walking around my work table with a sense of relief and a small dose of pride - I like to think that I’ve learned to keep the ego in check. As I stare down at one of our latest creations, I can’t help but wonder what led me down this path to Rug Making. Long story short - I was already in the carpet trade and it was a natural evolution, plain and simple. While this meager explanation doesn’t really touch on the mystery behind why we choose our different career paths, I like to think there’s some purpose to it all… In my case, maybe I was just meant to be a rug maker? Who knows, maybe it’s your calling as well?

Years of training and practice have culminated into this beautiful creation - see pics below. This was a custom rug that required so much of our time and energy… was it worth it?

Absolutely.

Most people are surprised that rugs like these are being produced in America, let alone in small workshops and garages. This fine craft of rug making is alive and well in America.

I wouldn’t recommend this level of complexity for beginners. Repeat patterns like these can test your sanity. However, on the flip side, it can be a wonderful meditative process where you get lost in the work and time flies by like the wind.

We actually made two of these rugs for the same home. This client had just built their home. The layout of the home featured two similar spaces within a great room. One space had a formal dining table and chairs and the other space had a lounging area with two sofas.

We captured some video of this rug in production. This rug had very little carving and sculpting. The client requested a designer style look and feel with no carving, invisible edge binding, and the look and feel of a tufted wool rug. This is not hard to do in custom rug fabrication. We have a precise method that we follow to achieve this look. After the inlay, we did extensive clean-up, then top-sheared the rug carefully.

This first picture is the final version of the artwork. In this case we used the computer to generate the renderings we needed. This is advanced level stuff, not to be confused with beginning levels. It takes time to get to this stage. For example the artwork that you create can be hand drawn and very basic. This is how I got started as well. All of my earlier artwork was created by hand.