Rug making
All Sonya Winner area rugs are handmade, which adds another layer of beauty to the final product and means that no piece is ever identical to another. Our luxury rugs are either tufted or knotted, in best quality Pure New Zealand Wool, pure Chinese silk, or a mixture of wool and silk. Sonya Winner Rugs are made by artisanal GoodWeave weavers in rural communities in India and Nepal where weaving skills and traditons have been passed from generation to generation. We are priviledged to playing a small part in continuing the traditions of rug making into the future.
Dyeing and Spinning
The yarns used for a Sonya Winner area rug have been twisted in a particular and unique way, giving our modern rugs their exceptional color and shine.
First the yarn is sorted by hand and then washed and dried removing impurities. It is then carded and spun using a hand wheel, after which it is ready to be transformed into the colors of our designs.
The dye master prepares the Swiss dye pigments, which are extremely high quality and completely free from Azo-based compounds, so are kind to the human skin. These dyes produce the vibrant colors we like to use and, unlike vegetable dyes, are fade resistant so long as they are not placed in direct sunlight. The yarn is dyed in small batches (pot dyed) and dried in the sun and then spooled into balls ready to be woven.
The Weaving Plan
For knotted area rugs – a weaving plan in the form of a graph is created, translating the original rug design made as a collage, sketch or painting, into comprehensive visual instructions for the weavers to follow.
For tufted area rugs – a plan of the design is accurately drawn onto the back of the canvas, indicating the areas of colors and the tuft height, as the tufting tool needs to be adjusted accordingly, in order to achieve different tuft heights.
Hand Knotting / Weaving
A loom is made ready for weaving the rugs by preparing vertically warped cotton threads that provide the base over which the carpet is woven. The length of the warp is adjusted to the length of the carpet and the weavers create knots around the cotton threads/warp.
Hand knotting is typically done at 100 knots per inch and each day 1 weaver will weave 10cm on a 1m stretch of the loom – so a 2m rug will have 2 people working on it, while a 3m rug requires 3 weavers.
An easy way to verify if an area rug is knotted is to check its reverse side where, if that is the case, all the knotted stitches will be visible.
Hand Tufting
This is a quicker method of rug production by hand and more often used for the creation of contemporary rug designs.
A hand held tufting tool is loaded with yarn and the weaver punches strands of wool into a canvas stretched onto a frame. Once the design is completely tufted a jute backing is attached to it by adhesive. The easiest way to distinguish this method of rug production is again, by checking the back side of the carpet – all hand tufted rugs will have a canvas backing.
Hand Carving
After a knotted or tufted rug has been woven, the front-side of the rug is perfected using giant scissors to adjust the tuft height to that specified in the design. The design of the rug is also accentuated by carving with scissors by expert hands.
This way, all sequences of the rug gain a distinctive dimension and depth, each unique on its own and complete as part of the whole design.
Washing and Drying
The trimmed rugs are washed using Himalayan water to wash off small scrap fibres – a process which enhances the colors and brings out the shine in the fibres.
The area rugs and runners are then dried on roof tops in the sun before being stretched to bring them back to the specified size. Stretching also removes the shrinkage and twisting from the washing and drying stages and helps straighten the corners.
