The Rug Library

Navalgund durries are traditionally woven on pit looms, and the craft has long been passed down within families of weavers in the town.

A pit loom is a treadle-operated loom where the weaver sits with their feet in a pit below floor level to work the pedals while the cloth is woven above ground.

Bhadohi hand-knotted carpets are made knot by knot on vertical wooden looms, with cotton or wool warps and wool pile yarn.

On a knotting loom, a shed stick turned on edge separates alternate warps for the weft to pass, and reversing it opens the countershed for the return pass.

Horizontal ground looms can be pegged out and dismantled quickly, which suits nomadic weavers, while settled workshops more often use vertical looms with upper and lower beams.

Lepcha weaves of Sikkim, called thara, are made on back-strap loin looms, which limits the cloth to narrow widths.

Monpa weavers are documented using three kinds of loom: the loin loom, a high-warp or treadle loom, and a low-warp loom.

MAP Academy states that Indian pile carpets are most commonly woven on roller-beam looms, which let a carpet longer than the loom's height be wound on as work progresses.

Backstrap looms are tensioned by the weaver's own body, one end tied around the waist and the other to a fixed post, and they weave cloth no wider than the weaver's reach.

MAP Academy notes that most Indian dhurries are woven on horizontal pit looms, with exceptions such as the Belgaum dhurries of Karnataka.

On the upright looms used by Bhutia carpet weavers in Sikkim, the cotton warp, called taan, is mounted on the upper beam and the finished carpet is wound onto the lower beam.

The warp-weighted loom is an ancient loom type in which the warps hang from a bar and are kept taut by bundles tied to loom weights.

Kharad rugs were traditionally woven on nomadic looms that could be set up, dismantled and carried across the desert by pack animals.

The upper and lower beams of a vertical carpet loom are either joined by two upright posts or set into holes in the workroom walls.