How We Hand-Weave
The majority of Jacaranda’s handmade carpets and rugs are hand-woven.
Hand-weaving is an art that takes time and skill.
Each roll of Jacaranda handmade carpet passes through at least 64 skilled hands, across 280 hours, over approximately 31 days. From dying and drying yarn, winding bobbins, warping yarn and hand-weaving on looms; to adding and drying the backing, shearing, hand-finishing and quality control. Every pair of skilled hands involved at each stage, play their part in creating Jacaranda’s wonderful natural colour bank and character filled textures.
Let us take you through some of the stages of the craft or click here for video.
Yarn & warping
Yarn is wound onto bobbins with each bobbin taking 10 minutes to wind. Each roll of carpet requires around 1,200 bobbins, so it takes about 200 hours to wind enough yarn for just one roll of carpet. These bobbins are then wound around a large warping wheel to create long threads that form the basis of carpet production. The warping wheel takes at least four operatives to wind at all times, to ensure that no threads become tangled.
Hand-weaving
Warp threads are threaded through the traditional wooden loom and tied in place, with these warp threads coming though to the front of the loom. 4-5 strong weavers are needed to work and keep the tension on each loom, without need for electricity.
They move the wooden frames by hand and heddles by pedals to cross the warp yarns over long metal rods to create the pile. A traditional shuttle is thrown from left to right and back to interweave the cotton weft. The rods are either slid out to leave loop pile, or cut free to create velvet.
Finishing
Latex is applied to the reverse of the carpet, then actionbac for structural stability. Large drying ovens have replaced sunshine, to allow production to continue during the monsoon.
All Jacaranda’s handmade rugs from India are sewn around the edges by hand, in the same yarn as the roll, ensuring a stylish finish.
Quality control
We love the quirkiness of texture that can only be made by hand, but hand-weaving cannot and does not set out to mirror the uniformity of ‘machine made’ carpet. Operatives check every inch of handmade carpet and use scissors to remove any stray yarns. Hand-held shearers create the smooth lustre of Jacaranda’s velvets. All handmade carpets are inspected by Jacaranda’s quality controller who compares the overall colour to the master, checks the pile height and that the pile is well-secured and even in colour. Every carpet shipped by Jacaranda carries the hand-written signature of our quality controller.