Thursday, November 5, 2009

Rug Hooking

Rug hooking is the art of creating rugs with strips of wool fabric pulled through a foundation fabric, such as burlap, linen, or monks cloth. In very basic terms, rug hooking consists of one stitch - pulling a loop of wool through a hole with a hook that resembles a crochet hook with a handle. It's an ancient art that dates back to the Egyptians.

Today, rug hooking is viewed as a way to balance our increasingly hectic lives with a creative outlet, while creating heirlooms and collectibles.

Rug
House

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Rugs

Afghanistan Rugs
Rugs/Carpet making in Afghanistan is a craft of great antiquity for which the country is justly famous. Before 1978 Afghanistan's Rugs/Carpets ranked fifth amongst the country's exports. Rich in form and color, the flat-woven, hand-knotted and felt creations woven by highly-skilled Turkmen, Uzbek, Hazara, Aimed, Kirghiz and Baluch craftsmen once represented the highest quality in Central Asia.

Daulatabad is a famous rug center just north of Maimana, and Shahkh, near Qaisar, to the west. In addition, one may often find good buys in other tribal Turkoman rugs such as the Mauri and the Qizil Ayak. They also display numbers of Donkey bags, bildow (narrow woven pieces used for yurt decorations) and namad, felt rugs. Ranging from black to grey, occasionally a prized white, namad are decorated with floral and geometric designs in bright, hot pink, yellow, orange, and white. When used as roffing for the yurts, the decorated side is turned toward the inside to enhance the colorful interior festooned with long strings of pompoms, woven bands, some narrow, some wide, all gayly exuberant.

Almost every walled compound in the suberbs of Maimana contains a yurt (prounonced ooy in Uzbaki) for summer living. The namad are made by specialists in the village of Wenchalat across the river from Maimana and are available in quanitity only on bazaar days when they may be purchased on almost any sidewalk and off the backs of numerous donkeys. Besides these various types of rugs the rug dealers also offer saddles and finely embroidered hats for sale.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Ernabella rugs

The three vibrant rugs are exhibited on Level 1 of the Spence Wing. Designed by Pantjiti McKenzie from Ernabella Arts Inc of the Pukatja Community. The rugs are an important part of the library's showcase of art and library treasures representing South Australia's social and cultural heritage.

The State Library has a longstanding relationship with Ernabella Arts Inc, working together to preserve their community's heritage. The women of the Pukatja Community have entrusted the library with a collection of crayon drawings created by school children attending the Ernabella mission school during the 1940s and 1950s. Anapalayaku walka, which has become the distinctive Ernabella style, reaches back to those early drawing classes in the mission school.

The State Library rug design commission, generously supported by the Myer Foundation, Perpetual Trustees, the State Library of South Australia Foundation, the Hon Diana Laidlaw and Ms Bronwyn Halliday, provided mentoring, training and promotional opportunities for the Ernabella artists.