After shearing the sheep, the wool is cleaned, carded, and spun by hand. Even today, Navajo weavers do not use spinning wheels; the wool is stretched and twisted onto a spindle by hand. Then the blanket is woven on the unique Navajo loom. Making an authentic Navajo rug is a labor-intensive process for the weaver. In addition to raising the sheep (which many of the weavers still do), the wool must be shorn, cleaned, carded, spun, and sometimes, dyed. Weaving a large rug can take a year or more. One thing to keep in mind is that, aside from the actual hands-on time needed to weave a Navajo rug, it often can take a weaver years to become proficient at weaving in the first place. Girls, and sometimes boys, usually start learning as children and progress in difficulty as they learn.
Once you are ready to have a Navajo rug of your own, you will want to know where to buy one. In order to receive a quality and authentic Navajo rug, you should seek out more reputable dealers. You will know you have found one when they are dedicated to answering any questions you may have. They will be direct and transparent with their answers. Also, they will have no issue providing you with a guarantee of authenticity to make sure you are getting a genuine rug.
Natural wool colors are used, except the red and theblack may have some commercial dye. With this rug, the grey can be brownish oreven tan, depending upon the fleece of the sheep used. These rugs are woven of natural, undyed, hand spun wool withdesigns of white, black, and brown. These weavers card together wool fromdifferent sheep to produce subtle shades of the white, black, and brown. It is possible to find several different shades of gray, brown, and tan in thesame rug. The wool for the Two Grey Hillsrugs is often fine and may require more weaving time, making them more costly. They usually have a plain, dark border. They may also have a spiritline.
The Bisti Navajo rug is the rarest of these Regional rugs, which are often made with more than nine borders. Many Bisti rugs have a thin checkered border. They display definite Oriental influences. Bisti rugs originated in the 1890s at a trading post southwest of Two Grey Hills. In 1896, J.B. Moore purchased the trading post and renamed it, Crystal, after a mountain spring of pure sparkling water.
Natural wool colors are used, except the red and theblack may have some commercial dye. With this rug, the grey can be brownish oreven tan, depending upon the fleece of the sheep used. These rugs are woven of natural, undyed, hand spun wool withdesigns of white, black, and brown. These weavers card together wool fromdifferent sheep to produce subtle shades of the white, black, and brown. It is possible to find several different shades of gray, brown, and tan in thesame rug. The wool for the Two Grey Hillsrugs is often fine and may require more weaving time, making them more costly. They usually have a plain, dark border. They may also have a spiritline.
It can be both tedious and difficult. These rugs can only be made by handlooms, which are manually operated. Back in those days, weavers used to set their looms up between two trees. Modern weavers now use poles as opposed to trees. They can sit on a small stool or on the floor while weaving. The weavers create layers by overlapping the threads at different stages to make a perfect pattern. These rugs have distinctive patterns that people recognize because they feature black and white stripes. You will notice the difference in the Navajo rugs wool and material. The Navajos produced high-quality hand-spun yarn from their own sheep, which they used to make the rugs.
First, authentic Navajo rugs are made with a unique style of vertical loom that uses a continuous warp, which means the base wool yarn that is used isn’t cut off at the ends; instead, the warp thread goes from the bottom of the loom to the top, and then loops down to the bottom, then loops to the top and so on. The warp yarn creates the foundation of the Navajo rug, whereas the weft yarn creates the design pattern. Mexican looms are horizontally oriented and use multiple pieces of warp threads that are fringed on the ends. If you see fringed ends, you are likely looking at a Mexican-made rug with individual warp threads instead of a Navajo rug made with one, long continuous warp. (This rule does not always hold, though. Some early Navajo “Germantown” style weavings may have added fringe.)
