Antique Chinese rug

In any old rugs the warp threads are of soft loosely twisted cotton, the threads varying in thickness, and there are only about six or eight warp threads to an inch, even in rugs that appear on the surface to be fine and compactly woven.

The woof threads in such rugs generally separate only three rows of knots to the inch and are held in place by warp threads which have been separated for their insertion by most primi­tive methods.

It is quite possible to note that in making the yarn used for these woof threads, the cotton has been twisted by twirl­ing the shaft between the fingers and the thumb in a very primitive way.

The shuttles that have been used to separate warp threads in antique rugs made for ordinary use were, judging from the work accomplished by them, clumsy and large and incapable of producing fine and compact work.