Jacaranda Carpets
Why Handmade?
At Jacaranda we aim to offer carpets and rugs of real character, so as our portfolio has grown, we have moved towards natural materials woven by traditional methods. We believe that it is these labour intensive processes that actually create our 'characterful' textures and wonderful, natural colour bank.
What are these processes?
All the floorcoverings labelled hand-woven have been created on traditional wooden looms. These need no electricity with the weavers manually moving the wooden frames and the shuttle to interweave the yarn over thin metal 'rods'. When removed these rods create a 'loop' as seen in designs such as Abha, or are cut and hand sheared into 'Velvet'. All our hand-woven designs are backed with latex to secure the pile, then checked and hand-finished.
Jacaranda's Natural Weave is our only range of machine woven broadloom and this we have included for its superb environmental credentials.
Jacaranda's Himalayan rugs are hand-knotted using traditional Tibetan rug making techniques. Here the weavers sit at a fixed loom, following by eye the pattern fixed to the frame above, and creating each and every knot by hand. This is an extremely labourious process, creating just 10cm of rug per day, but the quality and longevity of these rugs are superb.
Why natural fibres?
We believe that pure wool still makes the best carpets. The elasticity of good quality wool gives excellent resilience and wear properties. Its fibres are covered in a thin membrane which inhibits water penetration, so providing natural stain resistance. Wool is naturally flame retardant. It holds less 'static' than most synthetic yarns so does not attract dust, or promote the growth of dust mites or bacteria.
At Jacaranda we often receive compliments such as ''we love the naturalness of your colours'' or ''you have just the right tones''. In great part this is due to our natural, undyed wool products. We are able to offer such as wide range of 'undyed' colours by sourcing different wools from around the world. Dyes often create pollution in producer countries, another reason why we like to work with undyed yarn.
This year we have added to the viscose broadlooms in our range, see Simla. Viscose is in fact a natural fibre spun from cellulose. Viscose is not as hard-wearing or stain resistant as wool, but it does give a dramatic silk-like sheen, at a fraction of the price of the pure Chinese silk that we hand-knot into our Himalayan rugs.
Please check that handmade floorcoverings are right for you or your client
We choose to use labour intensive processes and natural fibres to reduce the environmental impact of our carpet production. We believe also, that they are responsible for our 'characterful' textures and beautiful, natural colours. We love the slight quirkiness that can only be handmade.
However these handmade characteristics so highly valued by many, do not appeal to all. Hand-weaving and hand-knotting cannot and do not set out to mirror the uniformity of 'machine made' carpet. Those wanting a perfectly uniform finish should consider something machine woven such as Natural Weave.
At Jacaranda we take quality control very seriously, and each roll and rug is checked and rechecked to make sure that it falls within industry tollerances. However slight variations in colour and weave are inevitable and part of their 'handmade' character rather than faults. Natural fibres may fade over time, especially if exposed to strong light.