The Wool Story
The wool comes from Northwest China, an area fed by the Yellow River, where the river deposits rich nutrients to the land, thus nourishing the grasses. Good grass makes for good sheep, and therefore good wool. The wool is long, thin, and soft, and very suitable for spinning by hand.
The Foundation
The Foundation refers to the basic structural components of handmade carpets. These components consist of warps and wefts that are often cotton.
Warp- Warps are vertical strands of fiber which stretch from the top to the bottom of the carpet.
Weft- Wefts are horizontal strands of fiber that are passed (woven) through the warp strands.
Weavers first put the warp on the loom, then they knot the colored wool yarn around the warps. After one line of colored wool yarn is knotted, they then apply the cotton yarn as weft which passes through the warp in order to hold and tighten the colored knotted wool yarn. Even tension of all warp strands is essential in producing a carpet without wrinkles.
The Vegetable-dye Story
Imperial Palace Carpets are dyed using all natural vegetable sources such as: Ginger:(ginger yellows), Walnuts: (light/dark browns), Cape Jasmine seeds (light/dark yellow), Sappanwood: (red/orange), Indigo: (light/dark blue).
While chemical dye can damage the natural wool fibers, natural vegetable dye helps protect the wool fibers from insect dmage and wear because the time, natural dye colors actually deepen and become richer and more vibrant with age.
How many hours?
| Spinning Wool | 12 days x 8 hours | = | 96 hours |
| Spinning warp and weft | 5 days x 8 hours | = | 40 hours |
| Dying the yarn | 2 days x 8 hours | = | 16 hours |
| Knotting carpet | 24 days x 8 hours | = | 192 hours |
| Trimming, washing & Final finishing | 3 days x 8 hours | = | 24 hours |
| Total | 46 days | = | 368 hours |
