Magic carpet

“ It is not the dirt that may be swept away, but fine dust in the atmosphere that settles permanently in carpet, adding gray to the tone of the carpet, whatever its original color may have been. Therefore it is advisable when purchasing carpet to choose a shade a trifle stronger than the final floor color desired. In matching wall coloring, draperies, or upholstery fabrics, at the time of purchase, it is a wise expedient deliberately to soil a small cutting of the carpet so as to judge what its appearance will be for most of its life. ”

“ She closed her eyes to hide the rush of tears, and to think, foolish girl that she was, of that other church miles and miles away. She could seem to see familiar forms gliding at this moment down the aisles, whose rich carpets gave back no sound of footfall. How soft and clear the colors of that carpet were! A suggestion of the delicately carpeted woods, and the shimmer of sunlight on a summer day toward the sun setting. She had helped to select that carpet herself, and she knew that she had an artist's eye for colors and for harmony. ”

“ The wails of the room itself were waincsotted in pannels of dark-stained wood; the window-curtains were of coarse green worsted, and encrusted with dust so ancient and irremovable, that it presented almost a lava-like appearance; the carpet that had once been bright and showy, was entirely threadbare, and had become grey with age. ”

“ That is all we shall want, especially if the floor be good; if it be not, as, by the way, in a modern house it is pretty certain not to be, I admit that a small carpet which can be bundled out of the room in two minutes will be useful, and we must also take care that it is beautiful, or it will annoy us terribly. ”

“ What I should like to see, especially in all London bedrooms, is a fresh, inexpensive carpet of unobtrusive colours, which can be constantly taken away and cleaned or renewed, rather than a more costly, rich-looking floor-covering, which will surely in time become and remain more or less dirty. But light carpets are seldom soft in tone, and I should be inclined to suggest felt as a groundwork, if the bare boards are inadmissible, with large rugs thrown down before the fireplace, dressing and writing-tables, &c. These should of course contrast harmoniously with the walls. ”

“ Of course, the same laws of colour harmonies and contrasts hold good for the carpet colourist, as for the artist in any other branches of applied art; but the carpet artist has his own particular problems, such as those that have been indicated, and such as arise, for instance, from the fact that carpets have wool surfaces and lie on the floor, and therefore bear quite a different relation to the decoration of a room than curtains or ceilings. ”

“ Like the walls of a room, the floor is a background: it should not furnish pattern, but set off whatever is placed upon it. The perspective effects dear to the modern floor-designer are the climax of extravagance. A floor should not only be, but appear to be, a perfectly level surface, without simulated bosses or concavities.
In choosing rugs and carpets the subject of design should be carefully studied. The Oriental carpet-designers have always surpassed their European rivals. ”

“ Happily, however, it is now a custom so much broken into that we may consider it doomed; for in all houses that pretend to any taste of arrangement, the carpet is now a rug, large it may be, but at any rate not looking immovable, and not being a trap for dust in the corners. ”

“ Another kind of hand weaving is the tapestry method, wherein the weft colours, wound upon wooden needles, are threaded round and between the warp ends, leaving a flat or slightly ribbed surface, not unlike that of an ingrain carpet. The absence of a tufted pile does not make this a luxurious carpet; but it enables a fine pitch to be employed, and the richest and most delicate effects of design and colour to be obtained. ”

“ It largely grows from very fanciful dispositions of free-growing natural forms, as well as curiously curved and tenuous forms, many of which are bone-like and fibre-like in character, flat in treatment and rather thin and washy in colour, and its influence has slightly percolated into designs for pile carpets. This style, sometimes intermixed with the more robust, less fantastic and rather fuller-coloured English style, has found followers in England, America and Germany, but the bulk of the designs now used in power carpet looms seems to be mainly of Oriental descent. ”

“ An aged weaver who had woven many thousand yards of carpeting assured me the prettiest carpets were always those in which every alternate strip was white or very light in color. Another thrifty way of using old material is the cutting into inch-wide strips of woven ingrain or three-ply carpet. ”

“ If the housekeeper thinks that this is "hominess" carried to excess, she may cover the floor with an ingrain carpet, or better, plain filling of a medium shade, on which a few rag rugs are laid, light in color. Very artistic carpets and rugs are made out of old carpets and sold at reasonable figures, and there still remain in some small towns throughout the country weavers who weave into carpets the carpet-rags sewn together by housewives for the price of their labor alone. ”

“ If baths have to be taken in the boys’ rooms, or if they clean their rifles, skates, or other matters there, or if they have pet animals which share their abode, I strongly advise that the floor should be covered with a plain good linoleum without any pattern on, and then on the top of that a strong square of carpet should be laid. Wallace’s ‘Victor’ is a capital carpet, and so is Pearke’s Anglo-Indian square carpet. ”

“ Carpets form a mosaic of small squares of worsted, or hair, or silk threads, tied into a coarse canvas, which is made as the work progresses. Owing to the comparative coarseness of the work, the designs should always be very elementary in form, and suggestive merely of forms of leafage, flowers,{26} beasts and birds, etc. The soft gradations of tint to which Tapestry lends itself are unfit for Carpet-weaving; beauty and variety of colour must be attained by harmonious juxtaposition of tints, bounded by judiciously chosen outlines; and the pattern should lie absolutely flat upon the ground. ”

“ Large wild-floral patterns are frequently to be seen on carpets, but they are rarely, if ever, satisfactory. Persian, Indian, and other geometric or conventional forms that lend themselves readily to a harmonious admixture of colours so that the carpet will, when on the floor, present a rich glow of colour instead of obtrusive masses of floral misrepresentations, are much to be preferred. Dull colouring is not essential to good taste—rather the reverse ”

“ In carpets, the pattern should, as a rule, radiate from geometric points; at least the more important spots should be on a circular, lozenge, or square basis, so that the eye should not be carried in one particular direction. If animals are used, they should have a simple outline, and should be treated flatly. Realistic flowers, birds, human figures, landscapes, and architecture are out of place on carpets. A border always improves a carpet, if properly designed to harmonize with the centre, or to enhance its value. ”

“ In houses with deal floors, where nailed-down carpets are used in all the rooms, a restful effect is produced by covering the whole of each story with the same carpet, the door-sills being removed 102 so that the carpet may extend from one room to another. In small town houses, especially, this will be found much less fatiguing to the eye than the usual manner of covering the floor of each room with carpets differing in color and design. ”

“ Morris has Kidderminster carpets for bedrooms, in pale pink, buff, and blue, &c., which are simply perfect in harmony of colour and design.
People who consider themselves good managers are very apt to turn the half worn-out drawing-room carpet into one of the bedrooms, but this is not a good plan, for it seldom matches the draperies, and is also apt to become frowsy and [Pg 19] fusty. I am not so extravagant as to recommend that a good carpet with plenty of possibilities of wear yet in it should be thrown away because it is not suitable for a bedroom. ”

“ The deep blue and the dark ruby red are equally extraordinary, and that is due to the brilliancy of the wool, which is firmer and, so to say, more transparent than silk, and makes one think of translucent enamel. As a piece of colour this carpet is certainly one of the finest, and there are very few carpets that have greater charm, which even the best reproduction could not give. ”

“ A carpet is by no means a necessity in any sleeping-room. In fact, many people prefer a stained or painted floor, with a rug which may be easily lifted and shaken. A small wooden rocking-chair, a table or stand for a candlestick, a two-leaved screen, which you can make yourself, and a little rack over your washstand for your towels, and then, with a nicely made bed, the room will be complete. ”

“ Then there is the consideration of the repeat, with the mysteries of the straight match, reverse, drop and half drop; of the width of the fabric, body and border; and of the various adjustments of design required for carpets of different sizes, whether breadth goods, Chlidema squares, medallions, or seamless. Last, there is the real artistic imagination that is required; the art of seeing from one repeat how a complete carpet will look, of estimating the difference in appearance between the flat colour on the paper and the richness of the wool ”

“ The hand-tufted carpet possesses an individuality, even in its faults, which no product of a machine can attain, and which, after all, is an attribute to a work of art. More of the soul of the worker has passed into it than the clashing metal of a power loom will permit to filter into its product.
Hand-made carpets have a further advantage in their adaptability to requirements. A single carpet, for instance, can be made to any specified shape, size, design, colour, and quality. ”

“ Other floor coverings are and have been made also without such a tufted surface, and of these some are simple shuttle-woven materials plain or enriched with needlework or printed with patterns, others are woven after the manner of tapestry-weaving (see Tapestry) or in imitation of it, and a further class of carpets is made of felt (see Felt) . This last material is entirely different from that of shuttle or tapestry weaving. Although carpet weaving by hand is, and for centuries has been, an Oriental industry, it has also been, and is still, pursued in many European countries. ”

“ The carpet grows visibly in a rather mysterious way, as often there is no pattern to be seen, the worker apparently evolving the design out of her inner consciousness, which accounts for the delightful irregularity and vagaries of hand-made rugs. ”

“ The carpet is a rich mulberry brown, day-bed a reproduction of an antique, painted in faded greens with panier fleuri design on back, in lovely faded colours, taffeta cushions of sage green and an occasional note about the room of mulberry and dull blue. Electric light shades are of decorated parchment paper.
Really an enchanting nest, and as it is in a New York apartment, and occasionally used as a bedroom, a piece of furniture has been designed for it similar to the wardrobe shown in picture, only not so high. ”

“ It is generally admitted that a floor entirely covered with a carpet is in many ways undesirable, especially from a sanitary point of view; while a hardwood floor, wholly or partly covered with rugs, has every advantage. Furthermore, the fashion, which has a great deal to do with what shall be used, aside from any question of intrinsic merit, has set strongly in this direction, and in many cases old floors are replaced with new ones of hard wood for the sole purpose of giving a chance for the use of rugs in place of carpets. ”

“ For a bed-room, nothing is so good as the square carpet, with a broad margin of the floor stained and varnished, as this is very easily taken up for the floor and carpet to be cleaned. The carpet must be laid down the first time by a man from the carpet-warehouse, so that it may be evenly stretched, which is seldom done by a carpenter ”

“ I think carpets are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in the whole world. It is impossible to be clean with them under your feet. You may sweep your carpet twenty times and raise a dust on the twenty-first. ”

“ A dirty carpet literally infects the room: if you consider the enormous quantity of organic matter from the feet of people coming in, which must saturate it this is by no means surprising.” (Miss Nightingale.) In laying down carpets it is very advisable, at first, to cover the floor beneath them with large sheets of thick paper, so as to prevent dust from rising between the boards. Old drugget, sacking, matting, or any similar substance, will effect the same purpose, and will, moreover, materially increase the durability of the carpet, by preserving it from the contact of the hard floor. ”

“ It has been stated that it is not an uncommon practice to expose a carpet to use in the bazaar or street with the object of enhancing its commercial value by giving it an artificial appearance of age. It is to be hoped, however, that this very insanitary method of faking is rare; but those who wilfully give preference to a carpet because it is dirty and faded, and apparently old, do not deserve too much sympathy. ”