How to choose a wool carpet?

It’s worth taking your time when choosing a woollen carpet, as it is a product that will adorn your home not just for a few years or decades, but for a lifetime – and it may even be something that will bring joy to your children and, after them, their children too… This is no exaggeration – particularly with hand-woven carpets, they tend to increase in value over time and ‘age gracefully’. In the following article, we’ll guide you through choosing the right carpet, answer your most frequently asked questions about woollen carpets, and introduce you to our basic range of woollen carpets. Let’s get started!

Which carpet should you choose for the hall and which for the bedroom? Shaggy or flat-woven? 

The basic criterion by which we classify woollen carpets is whether they have a long pile or are flat-woven. Flat-woven carpets can withstand heavier use and are therefore suitable for high-traffic areas such as hallways. They are also easier to maintain if they get dirty and are far more resistant to wear and tear.  

Runners are most commonly used in passageways, corridors, hallways, staircases, kitchens, bathrooms and even children’s bedrooms. They need not be limited to long strips for corridors and staircases; we also manufacture runners in the standard sizes of area rugs. If you cannot find one to suit your needs in our current range, we can produce it to order – tailored precisely to your requirements, in the dimensions and colours of your choice. We will manufacture and deliver it within two months. Another advantage of bespoke production is the price per square metre, which remains the same for made-to-measure orders as it is for the carpets we currently have in stock.

Another advantage of the runner is that you can wash it in the washing machine, provided, of course, that its dimensions and weight allow it. Wash it on the woollen cycle and it’ll be as good as new. And if you irreparably damage, wear through or stain one side, simply turn the rug over. The rug is reversible and will therefore last you twice as long! 

Smoothly woven rugs 

Our hand-woven kilims are also finely woven rugs. Generally, partly due to their price, they are not usually placed in the areas subject to the heaviest wear and tear. Thanks to their striking colours and patterns, they are always a statement piece that will command attention in any space. It is therefore worth bearing in mind that their striking nature means they are destined to be the focal point of the interior.

They are suitable for the main living area of the house, a library, a bedroom, a study or even a conservatory. We can tailor them to your requirements. We’ll produce them exactly to the dimensions, pattern and colour scheme you need. We can also tailor the colours to your vision – the yarn for each kilim is dyed individually, so we can capture even the subtlest nuances, such as the difference between a light and a dark ochre shade.

You can read about their illustrious history, which earned them a prominent place in European salons as early as the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, here. Kilims, also known as the ‘Pearl of the Balkans’, are still produced entirely by hand, from dyeing the yarn to the actual weaving. Believe it or not, weaving one square metre of kilim takes 10–14 days! Due to the density of the weave, these kilims are extremely durable and have a long lifespan. It is often stated that they can withstand 20 years of very heavy use on both sides, as these are reversible rugs. That’s a total of 40 years of intensive use. 

High-pile carpets

The counterpart to smoothly woven kilims and runners are high-pile carpets. The pile length ranges from 3–5 cm (classic carpet) to 20–25 cm (chalište).

Classic carpets with a finished pile height of approximately 3 cm can be used in the living room, bedroom and children’s room. They can withstand heavy use and, thanks to their greater weight, stay firmly in place without slipping, even without additional securing measures such as rubber mats. These rugs can also be used in smaller sizes as seat cushions for chairs or benches. We would also be happy to make this type of rug to order in your chosen dimensions and colour scheme. 

We produce classic carpets from spun wool – specifically from pre-cut pieces of wool yarn, hand-knotted into a wool warp. The dense weaving of the yarn creates the impression of a moss-like surface, which is typical of classic rugs. This is the same production method used in the weaving of Persian rugs, and they have quite a lot in common with them. 

Guber is a lighter, machine-made – and therefore more affordable – alternative to a traditional carpet. It is a lightweight carpet made from unspun wool, which is woven into the warp on an automatic loom. The surface feels soft to the touch and resembles lambskin in appearance, but don’t be misled. It is a woven product made from shorn wool, so no sheep were harmed in its production. Its advantage over real fur is its light weight, which makes it easy to handle and maintain. Its natural look will be appreciated by lovers of natural aesthetics, but also by pets, for whom the guber can provide a cosy bed. 

Guber is great for relaxing on, so it can also be used for yoga and meditation. Given the nature of guber and its light weight, we recommend using it in the bedroom or other rooms that see less footfall and are subject to less wear and tear. Guber can also be used as a bedspread over a bed or sofa, or as a seat cushion. Thanks to its light weight, you can simply pop it in the washing machine if it gets dirty – something that’s often impossible with other rugs.

A unique item amongst our rugs is the Rodop hand-knotted chalište. It is ideal for rooms intended for relaxation – bedrooms, living rooms, libraries, or in front of a fireplace. It has a distinctive appearance which, to the Central European eye unaccustomed to the Karakachan wool from which it is made, may resemble the pelt of a large aurochs. With its natural elegance, it suits a wide range of interiors – minimalist, retro, functionalist or even Scandinavian – and it is precisely in these styles that we have many customers. 

It tends to become a dominant feature of the interior, which is something you should bear in mind when planning your home. The Chalište is quite heavy, so it stays firmly in place. As well as being used on the floor, it can also be used as an original throw over a double bed or sofa. We’d be happy to make it for you to order in your chosen size and colour. 

It is a very striking rug with an interesting history, which you can also read about on our website. To this day, it is produced exclusively by hand-knotting wool pile up to 20–25 cm long into a woollen warp. The final pile height of the rug is approximately 10 cm. It resembles fur in appearance, but it is, once again, made from shorn wool, so no animals were killed in its production. 

Natural or dyed?

In this case, it is purely a matter of taste. We manufacture all types of carpets from natural, undyed wool. If you prefer a natural-looking carpet, you have a truly wide choice. If you’re after a coloured carpet, you can choose from kilims, runners and classic carpets.

It is the natural colouring of the chalište in particular that makes it so unique – every single piece is an original, in which individual shades ranging from pale white through amber to shades of grey, grey-brown, chestnut brown to dark black, which ripple across the surface of the chalište in gentle waves… 

However, when ordering a bespoke chalište, it is precisely this that must be taken into account – even if you commission a single-colour carpet in a light brown shade, the final look will be determined by the Karakachan wool currently available and will also reflect the talent and artistic flair of the weaver who has woven your particular carpet. In any case, it will be an original carpet, one of a kind. 

We also produce gubers in an undyed version, in the natural light cream colour of the wool. Natural tones also suit classic carpets, for which we normally have three yarns in stock – a light white-beige, a grey-brown and a dark brown. In these shades, we can produce both single-colour and multi-colour carpets – typically, for example, the ‘hermelín’ pattern. On the other hand, a coffee shade, for example, is achieved by using light and dark yarns together. For classic rugs, we also have a wide range of coloured yarns from which we can make your rug. 

Natural colours also suit runners. We routinely offer both single-colour and multi-coloured runners made exclusively from natural yarns. However, runners are typically characterised by bold colours, or rather a combination of multicoloured stripes. These rugs are based on the tradition of colourful Bulgarian rugs, known as ‘čerga’, which are distinguished precisely by their striking multicoloured stripes. Of course, more subtle colour combinations can also be achieved; it depends entirely on you and your specifications. We now also offer runners with geometric patterns, which can be colour-coordinated to complement your interior as required. 

Hand-woven kilims are a category of their own; we can produce them for you using either natural, undyed yarn or coloured yarns. Kilims are characterised by their bold colours, and the patterns play a vital role in combining these coloured yarns. Over the centuries, a colour balance has been achieved in traditional patterns that makes it almost impossible to take your eyes off the kilim. However, if you have a different vision and wish to customise the kilim’s colours, this is no problem at all for us. As kilims are hand-woven, there is no need for complicated adjustments to automatic looms – everything is done on the fly during the weaving process itself. We can tailor the shades of the yarns down to the very last detail. And we offer another special feature with our kilims – on request, we can dye the yarns for your kilim using only natural dyes, following traditional recipes. The overall effect of a naturally dyed kilim is that the colours are slightly less bright and vivid – such a kilim seems, right from the start, to possess the natural patina of decades and a beautifully balanced combination of colours. 

Hand-woven or machine-woven?

Here, for a change, it is primarily a question of cost. Hand-weaving kilims is by far the most time-consuming process; after all, it takes one weaver 10–14 days to weave one square metre, working an average eight-hour shift. It stands to reason that such time-consuming work must be reflected in the final price of the kilim. However, its value tends to increase over time, as the weaving of Bulgarian kilims from the Stara Planina is listed as an intangible cultural heritage under UNESCO protection, and each kilim is, in fact, a unique work of art. A kilim can therefore serve as a sound investment for your spare funds.

The situation is similar with the Rodop chalištět; although its production is no longer quite as time-consuming, it is still hand-knotted. Every weaver, who invariably has many years’ experience in knotting chalište, also brings their creativity and talent to the process. In both cases, this is a craft that is passed down from generation to generation. A traditional carpet is also made by hand, and it takes several days to weave an average-sized carpet, much like a chalište. All products in the hand-woven/hand-knotted category are of excellent quality and have a very long lifespan.

Machine-woven runners and gubers, by contrast, are characterised by a simple and time-efficient production process, which makes their price per square metre far more affordable. In the case of gubers, the price is a third of that of their hand-knotted counterpart – the chalište. In the case of runners, they cost just one-fifth the price of their plain-woven counterpart – the kilim! So if you’re looking for a budget-friendly solution, focus on runners and gubers. At the same time, we recommend these machine-made carpets – particularly runners – if you’re looking for carpets for areas subject to heavy wear and tear, such as hallways, kitchens or children’s bedrooms.

We hope this article has helped you make sense of the world of woollen carpets. If you choose the right one for your needs, taking the above information into account, we’re confident it will serve you well for many decades to come. If you haven’t found the information you’re looking for in this article, please email us at info@balkanova.eco.