Many talented hands carry a New Moon rug from raw materials to fine art underfoot.
SORTING, CARDING & SPINNING
Tibetan wool is sorted by color, hand-carded — the action of straightening the raw fibers so it can be turned into yarn — then hand-spun into thin strands of wool and other natural fibers.
DYING, DRYING & ROLLING
Using precisely formulated colors blended by our skilled Dye Masters, the yarn is hand-dyed in small batches for each rug, left to dry in the sun, then rolled into balls.
GRAPHING & WEAVING
A hand-drawn plan of the rug — indicating color and placement of every knot — is created to display behind the loom for the weavers to follow. Then the rug takes shape as our team intricately weaves each knot by hand.
WASHING, TRIMMING & BINDING
Rugs are washed with water, stretched and left to dry in the sun. Once dry, each rug is finished by hand-trimming the pile height and defining the edges of different elements or colors. Finally, the sides are wrapped in matching yarn and the ends are bound with our signature New Moon cloth tape.
KEY FEATURES
CROSSED WEAVING
Unlike most rugs produced in Nepal today, New Moon continues the tradition of Tibetan ‘crossed’ weaving — a construction method in which each successive row of knots is locked into place and pounded down tightly. Crossed weaving requires more skill, time, and expense — but it is the only way to create a truly lasting rug that is an investment in your home and family as it can be passed down for generations. Many producers in Nepal take shortcuts and weave ‘uncrossed’ rugs that are literally hollow, with nothing holding their foundations together. To all appearances, these rugs can be supple wool and silk with a high knot count — but their uncrossed nature means their durability and lifespan is limited.
KNOT COUNT
A rug’s knot count indicates how many individual knots of wool are found in one square inch and is a major factor in determining its fineness. A higher knot count allows for greater detail in the design and creates a superior texture over a lower knot count. You can feel the fineness of a rug when you try to bend it; a Tibetan rug with a high knot count and crossed foundation will bend quite easily — you can actually grab a section of a New Moon rug and crumple into one hand similar to a towel. You can be confident that the knot count of a New Moon rug is accurate. Unlike many others, we do not exaggerate the number of knots so you can be certain that you will find 100 knots per square inch in one of our 100 knot rugs
COLOR TWEEDING
Tweeding creates a complexity of color that gives a rug depth. The dyed wool — which has been spun together with three plies of twisted strands — must be separated, then one ply of another shade is combined with two plies of the original color. The new combination of plies is then twisted together once again to create a unique color of varying shades. Color tweeding is a labor intensive process, but well worth it for the vibrancy it brings to our designs.
NO CHEMICAL WASHES
Strong chemical washes give a newly-woven rug instant shine, but only at the expense of the wool which gets stripped of its natural lanolin. New Moon rugs are not washed with harsh chemicals; their shine naturally reveals itself after being polished through the exposure to light, air — and of course, passing feet!
TIBETAN WOOL
New Moon’s rugs are crafted with the highest-quality Tibetan wool from highland sheep of the Himalayan mountains — living at an altitude of 14,000 feet. Long fibers, high lanolin content, and the unique structure of the wool makes it an ideal material for rugs because of its dense texture, durability, and natural stain resistance.
HAND DRAWN GRAPHS
Instead of the computer-generated graphs used by most rug producers — which make for uniform, mechanical-looking rugs — we draw our graphs by hand. Highly skilled artists translate original paintings into knot-by-knot graphs, which account for the authenticity and beauty of our rugs.