Maharaja Kashmir Carpets

The region of Kashmir is home to some of the best carpet weavers in India and it is here that these were made.

These carpets are made out of the finest wools, which were sometimes imported from Bradford, Scotland, Wales & Manchester and were known as Manchester Wools.This fine wool was normally found in such high altitudes and the low vegetation in these areas resulted in a much finer quality of hair.

This fine wool was handspun and later hand knotted. The dyeing was done using vegetable/natural dyes, which improve with age as you use them. There are variations in the hues of shades within a colour, which in carpet terminology, is known as abrash and Shade bands, which are strips of variations in colour owing to the wool being dyed at different points of time using other ingredients from different lots.