No. 12. Colours blue and white. Border of medium blue. Centre of alternate stripes of one inch width blue, and half-inch white stripes.
No. 13. Colours blue and white. Border twelve inches deep of dark blue, clouded with medium. Centre of alternate threads of medium blue and white.
No. 14. Colours blue, black and orange yellow. Border eight inches deep of black, one inch of orange, two of black. Centre, alternate threads of blue and orange.
No. 15. Border of doubled threads of dark blue and orange. Centre of alternate stripes of inch wide light blue and orange woven together, one-half inch stripes of clear orange and white woven together.
In the examples I have given, wherever doubled threads of different colours woven together are used, it must be understood that they are to be slightly twisted, and that the warping for double-filling rugs need not be as close as for single filling. Twelve threads to the inch would be better than fifteen, and perhaps ten or eleven would be still better. Doubled yarn of different colours produces a mottled or broken effect, and this can often be done where the colours of the yarns do not quite satisfy the weaver. If they are too dull, twisting them slackly with a very brilliant tint will give a better shade than if the original tint was satisfactory, but in the same way yarns which are too brilliant can often be made soft and effective by twisting them together with a paler tint. Minute particles of colour brought together in this way are brilliant without crudeness. It is, in fact, the very principle upon which impressionist painters work, giving pure colour instead of mixed, but in such minute and broken bits that the eye confounds them with surrounding colour, getting at the same time the double impression of softness and vivacity.
These examples of fifteen different rugs which can be woven from the three tints of blue, red and orange, together with black and white, do not by any means exhaust the possibilities of variety which can be obtained from three tints. Each rug will give a suggestion for the next, and each may be an improvement upon its predecessor.
CHAPTER VII.
COTTON RUGS.
The warp-covered weaving which I have described in a previous chapter as being the simplest and best method for woolen rugs, is equally applicable to cotton weaving. It is, in fact, the one used in making the cotton rugs woven in prisons in India, and which in consequence are known as “prison rugs.” They are generally woven in stripes of dark and light shades of indigo blue and measure about four by eight feet. They are greatly used by English residents in India, being much better adapted to life in a hot climate than the more costly Indian and Persian rugs, which supply the world-demand for floor coverings.
In our own summer climate and chintz-furnished summer cottages they would be an extremely appropriate and economical covering for floors. The warp is like that of the Navajo blanket, a heavy cotton cord, the filling or woof of many doubled fine cotton threads, which quite cover the heavy warp, and give the ridged effect of a coarse rep.