Berber carpet weaving

When you buy a Berber rug from a specialized boutique like Les Losanges, it’s a completely hand-woven product. Find out here why it’s so important to make this clear, and what it involves.

The importance of handmade :

Hand-woven carpets are much better quality than machine-made carpets for several reasons:

• Firstly, they are generally made from high-quality materials, such as Berber wool or cotton rugs, which are durable and of superior quality.
• What’s more, hand-woven rugs are often made using traditional methods that have been perfected over the centuries, giving them superior quality and durability.
• Finally, hand-woven rugs are often made with particular care and attention, which can contribute to their overall quality.

In the case of Moroccan carpets, this last point is particularly important. In fact, each weaver decides on the patterns and colors according to her emotions and feelings, making it a truly unique product.

About weaving:

Berber carpet weaving is an ancestral art that has been handed down from generation to generation in the Berber communitiesof Beni Ouarain, Boucherouite and Azilal. Berber carpets are hand-woven by spinners, Berber women weavers with extensive weaving experience. The work is done on a carpet loom, the azetta, which is a frame – in Berber “imchdn” – on which the threads are stretched horizontally and vertically to create the desired pattern.

To begin weaving, the warp threads(those running horizontally) are stretched over the carpet loom and held in place with small pieces of wood or metal called knots. Weft threads(those running vertically) are then passed through warp threads using an instrument called a weaving hook. By alternating colors and altering thread tension, Berber weavers can create intricate patterns and designs.

Berber rugs can take a long time to weave, as each rug is entirely hand-woven and each pattern is created using a techniquecalled “warp stitch“. This means that each new weft thread is passed through each warp thread individually, creating precise, detailed patterns. Because of the complexity and labor involved in their manufacture, Berber carpets are often considered high-quality collector’s items.

Handmade, but not necessarily more expensive!

The general idea that hand-woven carpets are more expensive than industrial models is no longer true. The major distributors of home furnishings and decoration products operate with complex models in which numerous intermediaries apply high margins, which ultimately result in a not-so-cheap price for a product of mediocre quality.

By working with Les Losanges, and its cooperative of Berber weavers based in Morocco, the number of intermediaries is kept to a minimum, so you can buy a low-cost, high-quality Berber carpet.