Carpet

a woven covering for the floor or stairway. Carpets are woven usually in long strips up to a yard in width. The strips are sent to market in large rolls. Short lengths are cut off and sewed together according to the size of the floor to be covered. As distinguished from a rug, a carpet covers usually the entire floor and is fastened down by carpet tacks.

American carpets are woven by machinery. Three distinct weaves are recognized. To understand the difference it is necessary to hold in mind that the parallel threads that run lengthwise constitute the warp. The threads that run crosswise are the weft or woof. The weft and the warp woven together form a web.

The simplest weave is the ingrain carpet. It is called sometimes the Scotch carpet. Sometimes it is called a Kidderminster carpet from the English town of that name noted for carpet weaving. An ingrain may be two-ply or three-ply. A two-ply ingrain is double. It consists of two webs, let us say, a brown and a blue combined. By passing the threads up or down, the webs change sides. Wherever the blue web shows on one side, the brown web shows on the other. The figures are not unlike blisters. The blue web on one side and the brown web on the other side may be pulled apart. They are connected only around the edge of the figure. In the spaces between figures the webs may be woven together solid. A two-ply ingrain of the colors named has a blue pattern on a brown ground. Turn it over, and the pattern appears in brown on a blue ground. A three-ply ingrain is the combination of three webs--three colors. The pattern may have great variety and the body of the carpet is naturally softer and more durable. In all ingrain the surface threads lie flat. The best ingrains are made entirely of wool, though cotton and other materials are used to lessen the cost.

A second kind of carpet is the Brussels. It has a rich, corded appearance. It is built on a linen web. Worsted threads are run in and out lengthwise. These threads run over a set of crosswires. The wires are afterward pulled out, leaving a looped surface. There are usually five series of woolen threads, each of different color. The different colors rise to the surface and form the loops or lie in the body of the fabric according to the pattern. A standard five-color Brussels carpet, twenty-seven inches wide, requires 2,860 threads.

The tapestry carpet is a variation of the Brussels. Instead of five or six sets of differently colored woolen threads, the tapestry is woven, loop fashion, with one set of threads worked into the linen web. The pattern effect is secured by printing the thread in lengths, a few inches or feet of one color, then a few inches or feet of another color. Although each thread is of all colors, a single thread gives no idea of the pattern. Arranged side by side, however, elongated patterns may be seen. A pattern nine feet long in the thread is shortened to two feet in the looped and completed tapestry. The dyeing of the threads is accomplished by winding them on a drum, side by side, and printing them in color. Miles of parallel threads are wound up and stained at once.

The third important weave is the Wilton or Moquette. It differs from the Brussels in that the loops are cut before the wires are withdrawn. When laid for use, the foot presses on the loops of the Brussels carpet; but a Wilton carpet presents the ends of the cut fibers to the foot. These carpets are known also as pile carpets and velvet carpets. The Ax-minster is a pile carpet.

The first American carpet makers learned the art chiefly in Ax-minster, Kidder-minster, Wilton, and other British weaving centers. The British had their start from France and Belgium. The art may be traced backward to Turkey, to Persia, and to the East Indies. Aside from home-made rugs and carpets, the first American carpet was made by William Sprague at Philadelphia in 1791. It was an Ax-minster. Lowell, Massachusetts, became a center of carpet weaving. American manufacturers have been protected and encouraged by a high tariff on foreign carpets. Entire factories, finding their product barred from the American market, the best carpet market in the world, moved their looms and weavers from Scotland and England to American soil. The United States now leads the world in this manufacture. According to the last census 125 firms were engaged in carpet weaving, operating 83,000 power looms, with an annual output of approximately 100,000,000 yards, worth $50,000,000 at wholesale. Pennsylvania leads the Union in carpet weaving. In 1900 over $23,113,058 worth, or forty-eight per cent of our entire output of carpets, came from the looms of that state.

The old-fashioned rag carpets, once the housewife's pride, are distinctly American. They are still made and not infrequently in handsome patterns. The Navajo Indians, famous also for basketry, weave beautiful rugs and blankets in striking colors, which have lately attracted attention and command large prices.

See Rug; Shawl; Weaving; Navajo