DEVELOPMENT OF CARPETS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27396, 8 July 1954, Page 8

DEVELOPMENT OF CARPETS

ADDRESS BY MR R. R. LIVINGSTONE

Carpets insured for £lOOO were exhibited to illustrate a talk on Oriental and European carpets and rugs by Mr R. R. Livingstone at a meeting of the Association of Friends of the Canterbury Museum on Tuesday evening. Mr Livingstone described carpets as one of the most expensive items in the modern home, and spoke of the beginning of carpet-making in the first century A.D. and the modern products of a Christchurch factory. The wool of sheep, goats, camels, and yaks was used by nomad Asian shepherds who made carpets on portable looms, said Mr Livingstone. He mentioned the famous Donegal rug of Ireland, and an unfortunate Irishman who once wore an Irish-made carpet to a bear-baiting bout and was mistaken by the dogs for the bear. “The fineness of a carpet is reckoned by the number of knots to the square inch,” said Mr Livingstone. “A fine carpet had about 100 knots to the square inch, and only rare carpets have more than 300.”

The Sehna knot and the Ghordies knot were the two most commonly used in carpet manufacture, said Mr Livingstone. Another variety called the Jufti knot had been brought into use

in recent years, and was spoiling the industry because a poorer quality carpet was produced by its use. “The finest known carpet is a hand made masterpiece of Indian silk with 2500 knots to the square inch,” said Mr Livingstone. "'lt is reckoned that a man can tie one knot every second, or about 15,000 during a day’s work.” Mr Livingstone contrasted the machine-made body-carpet in New Zealand homes with file beautiful hand-woven rugs used by nomad Asian tribes for the floors of their tents. He said that New Zealanders demanded a wide range of patterns. Asian peoples, however, kept to one pattern of carpet for several generations.