Carpet Weaving in Persia

1914
Process Seems Tedious, But the Production Is Celebrated Throughout the World
Generally speaking, the carpets of India can never excel those of Persia, as the materials used in the former are not of the same superior quality as those employed in the latter country.

The wool of which many of the best carpets are manufactured is obtained from Kashmir. Sometimes carpets which are mistaken for silk are really of an extremely fine quality of wool known as "pashm." This is obtained from the goats of Kashmir and grows close to the skin, being protected by the long arid coarser wool. It is as smooth and lustrous as silk and is used for the beautiful soft shawls for which Kashmir is famous.

Peculiar methods are employed by the Indian weaver in converting his original design into a textile. Instead of working from a colored drawing or diagram, the weaver has the pattern translated on paper into rows of symbols, each of which expresses the number of stitches and the color. With this written "key" in his hand, the head weaver sits behind his subordinates and dictates the pattern to them, one row at a time, all through the breadth of the carpet. These weavers — generally quite small boys — sit in front of the warp strings and tie in the requisite number of stitches of each color as called out to them by the reader from his ciphered script.

These boys, who perform the actual process of weaving the pile, follow day by day the dictations of the head man, knowing nothing of the pattern they are preparing, but gradually building up in a mechanical way the carpet on the strings before them.