Rugs Direct

Southwestern Rugs Require Special Care

Copyright © 2008 Rugs Direct^®

All fine-quality area rugs require a certain amount of care and maintenance. Some more than others. Southwestern or Navajo rugs, because of the special intricate patterns and colors they may feature require a bit more attention than most.

There is a company in Tucson, Arizona that specializes in the cleaning and repair of high-quality southwestern rugs. The Navajo Rug Repair Company has prepared a list of 10 rules your should follow for maintaining your special Native American rug:

1. If your rug is placed on a hard-surface floor, use a high-quality area rug pad. It will not only prolong the life of the rug tremendously, it will also prevent it from slipping and provide a high measure of safety. Do not use a net-style (or waffle) pad, or one made of rubber or jute. The type of pad sold by Rugs Direct goes by the name Miracle Hold.
2. Many southwestern rugs are reversible. If yours is, periodically flip it to even out the distribution of wear and fading.
3. Inspect the rug for insect damage or infestation. If you don't know what the signs are, hire a professional to check the rug for you. At the first sign of anything unusual, treat it for moths and carpet beetles (Dermestidae).
4. Vacuum your rug regularly, but do not use motor-driven rotating brushes.
5. Clean up spill immediately. Never let anything liquid or greasy sit on the rug because it is likely the resulting stain could be permanent.
6. Keep pets away from the rug. Pet urine is just about the worst thing to which you can subject a beautiful southwestern rug. It stains, it stinks and it is impossible to completely remove. Of course it is also highly undesirable to have your pet chew of claw the rug as well.
7. Keep the rug dry. If it does get wet, dry it in as short a time as possible. Use clean towels and dab the liquid - don't rub. If you have a wet-dry vacuum (Shop-Vac), use it to pull as much of the liquid out of the rug as possible.
8. Likewise, don't allow moisture to penetrate the rug. For example, don't place a live plant on the rug because the resulting moisture can lead to mildew or rot. Wet shoes should also go someplace other than on top of your southwestern rug.
9. When the rug gets dirty - and ultimately not matter how careful you are, it will - have it cleaned by a specialist who knows the proper way to care for a Native American rug. Do not have it dry-cleaned, and under no circumstance try to steam-clean or use an automatic cleaner on your beautiful rug.
10. If you notice any tears or fraying on the rug, have it repaired immediately. Again, your best bet is to hire a professional who knows how to minimize the appearance of the damage and prevent it from getting any worse. Contact the Navajo Rug Repair Company via e-mail, by clicking here.

Rugs Direct has over 225 styles of southwestern rugs available on its website, in a variety of sizes and colors. If you would like to browse the selections, please click here.

If you properly maintain your southwestern area rug and give it the care it deserves, it will provide you with many, many years of enjoyment and beauty.

Southwestern Style has Special Appeal

Copyright © 2008 Rugs Direct^®

Through the use of southwestern rugs it is possible to create a unique rustic atmosphere in any room in your home. Of course artwork, furnishings and accessories can enhance the look, but the bold southwestern rug is the decorating anchor that serves to define the rest of the room.

Southwestern rugs often go by other names. It's not uncommon for someone to refer to them simply as western rugs, although technically these are somewhat different. People frequently call southwestern rugs Native American rugs or will even attribute them to a specific tribe such as Navajo or Zapotec. An expert will be able to tell you the subtle differences between the rugs created by the various tribes, but to most of us the generic term southwestern does an adequate job of describing this particular style.

A common characteristic to most southwestern rugs is the combination of brilliant colors with characters symbolizing spiritual or historic aspects of Native American life. The amount of detail in a typical southwestern rug requires an extremely high density of fibers and a top-quality, handmade rug can take upwards of a year to weave. They are works of art like no others!

The designs of southwestern rugs prior to the mid 1800s were very different from what we see today. First of all, they typically weren't rugs, but blankets created to be worn around the shoulders. The fiber of choice was wool from the Churro sheep, which was introduced to the region by the Spanish in the middle 1500s. Designs tended to have  many horizontal lines and were not nearly as intricate as those we think of as Navajo blankets today.

When the southwestern tribes began making blankets - and then rugs - for export to the East Coast and Midwest of America, the styles changed considerably. First of all, the items weren't made to be worn any longer, but truly became both functional and attractive additions to people's floors. With most of the Churro herds gone, the artisans turned to commercially spun wool yarn and machine spun plied cotton. The introduction of synthetic dyes also drastically changed the look of many southwestern style rugs.

During the early part of the twentieth century an interesting transformation happened in the design of traditional southwestern rugs. The traders who were buying rugs in large quantities from the southwestern tribes and selling them to wealthy non-Native-Americans throughout the rest of the country, started injecting their own ideas into the designs. More accurately, they started telling the rug-makers what they thought their customers wanted, and insisted the southwestern weavers modify their designs to match. (Someone once compared this to opening a restaurant in France to serve Italian food to Americans and ending up with a fast-food pizza joint!)

As a result, many southwestern designs started looking a lot more like Oriental or Persian rugs. For instance, very few Native American weavers included a border in their designs. But American purchasers seemed to insist on having one. Also people seemed to want a heavier rug than what the Navajos and other southwestern weavers thought was necessary. Some people actually stopped referring to these new hybrids as southwestern and started calling them "regional rugs" or "tribal." For a short period of time - up until around 1950 - sales of southwestern rugs plummeted.

Modern southwestern rugs have gone back to the basics while continuing to show a great deal of diversity in color and design. They tend to be less regionalized than previously, and now incorporate many popular colors that simply weren't available to the original Native American craftsmen. Southwestern rugs have also made another transition, this time from the floor to the wall. More than ever people are actually hanging a southwestern rug as if it was a tapestry, but the effect on a room's overall decor can be truly stunning.

Rugs Direct has approximately 250 southwestern rug styles available at its website. One of the most popular is the Genesis Arizona made by Oriental Weavers. See it and all the other southwestern patterns by clicking here.