Navajo rugs – add a native American touch to your interior design
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Navajo rugs are especially beautiful and a magnificent way to add a native American touch to your interior design and take an ethnic element to fill the room with character so that it becomes a small island of culture. You know that textiles are a key element in every interior design as they add color, texture, warmth and depth to the room.
Navajo rugs and textiles are manufactured by Navajo people and have not lost their popularity for more than a hundred years. Classic and original rugs are hand woven on an upright loom and are a real treasure. Initially used as blankets, cloaks and saddle blankets, textile products have some distinctive features which make them unique.
The art of rug weaving is one of the most difficult and most beautiful ones. It is often a mystery passed from mother to daughter. Weaving requires a lot of effort: to create a three-foot rug can take eight months. Handmade native American Navajo rugs are exclusive works of art with distinctive individuality, traditional patterns of geometric shapes or images of objects and people. A Navajo rug is made of 100 % wool and original rugs are often collector’s items with price tags reaching thousands of dollars. The patterns vary and feature different designs –from bold, geometric designs to intricate patterns and motifs.
Where can you use Navajo rugs? Practically – everywhere. A Navajo rug will be a wonderful accent in your living room, bedroom and a beautiful way to separate visually the different functional areas in an open plan living space. Very often they are used as a decor for entry halls and as an accent in bathroom decors.
Navajo Reservation is located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is the largest American Indian Reservation in the USA and weaving is an important economic benefit to the tribe. Navajo rugs have some typical designs and patterns and each one has specific colors. “Two Grey Hills” is characterized with natural colors typical for wool – white, black, brown, and grey and black is dyed to get a more intensive color. Traditionally the wool was dyed with natural pigments derived from plants and the rugs have soft and pleasing colors. With the introduction of commercial dyes around 1870 the rugs were weaved with brighter vivid hues and the bright colors made Navajo rugs well known and popular.
Navajo rugs have some iconic patterns, typical for different areas in the reservation and nowadays known all over the world – Ganado rugs, Storm pattern Rugs, Two Grey Hills and Toadlena, Chinle rugs, Pictorial rugs, etc. Look at the gallery below to see how Navajo are a great addition to interior design and add their unique beauty to the home.
