CARPETS

Carpets are back in trends in 2020: Stylish carpet & rug ideas

INTRODUCTION

The term carpet comes from Old French “carpite”. One derivation of the term states that the French term came from the Old Italian carpita, from the verb “carpire” meaning to pluck. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term “carpet” was first used in English in the late 13th century, with the meaning “coarse cloth”, and by the mid-14th century, “tablecloth, [or] bedspread”.

A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century, synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester are often used, as these fibers are less expensive than wool. The pile usually consists of twisted tufts that are typically heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term carpet is often used interchangeably with the term rug, although rugs are typically considered to be smaller than a room and not attached to the floor.

USES OF CARPETS:

Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including

  • Insulating a person’s feet from a cold tile or concrete floor,
  • Making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor (e.g., when playing with children or as a prayer rug),
  • Reducing sound from walking (particularly in apartment buildings), and
  • Adding decoration or colour to a room. Carpets can be made in any colour by using differently dyed fibers. Carpets can have many different types of patterns and motifs used to decorate the surface.
  • Carpets are used in industrial and commercial establishments such as retail stores and hotelsand in private homes.
  • Today, a huge range of carpets and rugs are available at many price and quality levels, ranging from inexpensive, synthetic carpets that are mass-producedin factories and used in commercial buildings to costly hand-knotted wool rugs that are used in private homes of wealthy families.
  • Carpets can be produced on a loomquite similar to woven fabric, made using needle felts, knotted by hand (in oriental rugs), made with their pile injected into a backing material (called tufting), flatwoven, made by hooking wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric, or embroidered.
  • Carpet is commonly made in widths of 12 feet (3.7 m) and 15 feet (4.6 m) in the US and 4 m (13 ft) and 5 m (16 ft) in Europe. Since the 19th and 20th century, where necessary for wall-to-wall carpet, different widths of carpet can be seamed together with a seaming iron and seam tape (formerly it was sewntogether) and fixed to a floor over a cushioned underlay (pad) using nails, tack strips (known in the UK as gripper rods), adhesives, or occasionally decorative metal stair rods. Wall-to-wall carpet is distinguished from rugs or mats, which are loose-laid floor coverings, as wall-to-wall carpet is fixed to the floor and covers a much larger area.

TYPES OF CARPETS: 

  1. Woven

The carpet is produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric. The pile can be plush or Berber. Plush carpet is a cut pile and Berber carpet is a loop pile. There are new styles of carpet combining the two styles called cut and loop carpeting. Normally many colored yarns are used and this process is capable of producing intricate patterns from predetermined designs (although some limitations apply to certain weaving methods with regard to accuracy of pattern within the carpet). These carpets are usually the most expensive due to the relatively slow speed of the manufacturing process. These are very famous in Iran, India, Pakistan, and Arabia.

  1. Needle felt

These carpets are more technologically advanced. Needle felts are produced by intermingling and felting individual synthetic fibers using barbed and forked needles forming an extremely durable carpet. These carpets are normally found in commercial settings such as hotels and restaurants where there is frequent traffic.

  1. Knotted

On a knotted pile carpet (formally, a “supplementary weft cut-loop pile” carpet), the structural weft threads alternate with a supplementary weft that rises at right angles to the surface of the weave. This supplementary weft is attached to the warp by one of three knot types (see below), such as shag carpet which was popular in the 1970s, to form the pile or nap of the carpet. Knotting by hand is most prevalent in oriental rugs and carpets. Kashmir carpets are also hand-knotted. Pile carpets, like flat carpets, can be woven on a loom. Both vertical and horizontal looms have been used in the production of European and oriental carpets. The warp threads are set up on the frame of the loom before weaving begins. A number of weavers may work together on the same carpet. A row of knots is completed and cut. The knots are secured with (usually one to four) rows of weft. The warp in woven carpet is usually cotton and the weft is jute.

There are several styles of knotting, but the two main types of knot are

  1. Tufted

These are carpets that have their pile injected into a backing material, which is itself then bonded to a secondary backing made of a woven hessian weave or a man made alternative to provide stability. The pile is often sheared in order to achieve different textures. This is the most common method of manufacturing of domestic carpets for floor covering purposes in the world.

  1. Others
  • A flatweavecarpet is created by interlocking warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal) threads. Types of oriental flatwoven carpet include kilim, soumak, plain weave, and tapestry weave. Types of European flatwoven carpets include Venetian, Dutch, damask, list, haircloth, and ingrain (aka double cloth, two-ply, triple cloth, or three-ply).
  • A hooked rug is a simple type of rug handmade by pulling strips of cloth such as wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric such as burlap. This type of rug is now generally made as a handicraft. The process of creating a hooked rug is called Rug hooking[8]
  • Unlike woven carpets, embroiderycarpets’ are not formed on a loom. Their pattern is established by the application of stitches to a cloth (often linen) base. The tent stitch and the cross stitch are two of the most common. Embroidered carpets were traditionally made by royal and aristocratic women in the home, but there has been some commercial manufacture since steel needles were introduced (earlier needles were made of bone) and linen weaving improved in the 16th century. Mary, Queen of Scots, is known to have been an avid embroiderer. 16th century designs usually involve scrolling vines and regional flowers (for example, the Bradford carpet). They often incorporate animal heraldry and the coat of arms of the maker. Production continued through the 19th century. Victorian embroidered carpet compositions include highly illusionistic, 3-dimensional flowers. Patterns for tiled carpets made of a number of squares, called Berlin wool work, were introduced in Germany in 1804, and became extremely popular in England in the 1830s. Embroidered carpets can also include other features such as a pattern of shapes, or they can even tell a story.

CONSTRUCTION OF CARPETS

  1. Fibres, and
  2. Yarns

Carpet can be formulated from many single or blended natural and synthetic fibres.

  • Fibres are chosen for durability, appearance, ease of manufacture, and cost. In terms of scale of production,
  • The dominant yarn constructions are polyamides (nylons) and polypropylene with an estimated 90% of the commercial market.

Nylon (Polyamides):

  • Since the 20th century, nylonis one of the most common materials for the construction of carpets. Both nylon 6 and nylon 6-6 are used. Nylon can be dyed topically or dyed in a molten state (solution dying). Nylon can be printed easily and has excellent wear characteristics.
  • Due to nylon’s excellent wear-resistance, it is widely used in industrial and commercial carpeting. In carpets, nylon tends to stain easily because of the dye sites which exist on the fibre. These dye sites need to be filled in order to give nylon carpet any type of stain resistance. As nylon is petroleum-based it varies in price with the price of oil.

Polypropylene:

  • Polypropylene, a polyolefinstiffer than the cheaper polyethylene, is used to produce carpet yarns because it is still less expensive than the other materials used for carpets. It is difficult to dye and does not wear as well as wool or nylon. Polypropylene, sometimes referred to simply as “olefin”, is commonly used to construct berber carpets.
  • Large looped olefin berber carpets are usually only suited for light domestic use and tend to mat down quickly. Berber carpets with smaller loops tend to be more resilient and retain their new appearance longer than large looped berber styles.
  • Commercial grade level-loop carpets have very small loops, and commercial grade cut-pile styles can be well constructed. When made with polypropylene, commercial grade styles wear very well, making them very suitable for areas with heavy foot traffic such as offices.
  • Polypropylene carpets are known to have good stain resistance, but not against oil- based agents. If a stain does set, it can be difficult to clean. Commercial grade carpets can be glued directly to the floor or installed over a 1/4″ thick, 8-pound density padding. Outdoor grass carpets are usually made from polypropylene.

Wool and wool-blends:

  • Woolhas excellent durability, can be dyed easily and is fairly abundant. When blended with synthetic fibres such as nylon the durability of wool is increased.
  • Blended wool yarns are extensively used in production of modern carpet, with the most common blend being 80% wool to 20% synthetic fibre, giving rise to the term “80/20”. Wool is relatively expensive and consequently it only comprises a small portion of the market.

Polyester:

  • The polyesterknown as “PET” (polyethylene terephthalate) is used in carpet manufacturing in both spun and filament constructions. After the price of raw materials for many types of carpet rose in the early 2000s, polyester became more competitive.
  • Polyester has good physical properties and is inherently stain-resistant because it is hydrophobic, and, unlike nylon, does not have dye sites. Colour is infused in a molten state (solution dyeing). Polyester has the disadvantage that it tends to crush or mat down easily. It is typically used in mid- to low-priced carpeting.
  • Another polyester, “PTT” (Polytrimethylene terephthalate), also called Sorona or 3GT (Dupont) or Corterra (Shell), is a variant of PET. Lurgi Zimmer PTT was first patented in 1941, but it was not produced until the 1990s, when Shell Chemicals developed the low-cost method of producing high-quality 1,3 propanediol (PDO), the starting raw material for PTT Corterra Polymers.
  • DuPont subsequently commercialized a biological processfor making 1,3-propanediol from corn syrup, imparting significant renewable content on the corresponding Sorona polyester carpet fibers. These carpet fibers have resiliency comparable to nylon.

Acrylic:

  • Acrylicis a synthetic material first created by the Dupont Corporation in 1941 but has gone through various changes since it was first introduced. In the past, acrylic carpet used to fuzz or “pill” easily.
  • This happened when the fibres degraded over time and short strands broke away with contact or friction. Over the years, new types of acrylics have been developed to alleviate some of these problems, although the issues have not been completely removed.
  • Acrylic is fairly difficult to dye but is colourfast, washable, and has the feel and appearance of wool, making it a good rug fabric.

FOR MORE INFO GO TO THE LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet