Bhadohi, India
Salam Exports keeps its house near the Eidgah in Nai Bazar, Bhadohi, the quarter the town's older export families have worked from for decades. Its declared range is the widest in the trade, hand-knotted carpets, handloom rugs and durries, hand-tufted carpets, felt floor coverings and other handmade floor coverings. Arzeena Rub is the contact for the firm. Salam Exports is a member of the Carpet Export Promotion Council, the Indian Ministry of Textiles body for carpet exporters, under membership number 8467.
Hand-knotted carpets, handloom rugs, durries, hand-tufted carpets, felt rugs
Pile carpets knotted by hand on the loom, tuft by tuft, in the construction the Bhadohi belt built its export trade on. Density, pile height and finish are all set piece by piece rather than by machine.
Flatwoven rugs and durries made on handlooms without a pile, the weave carrying the whole of the design. The construction is reversible and light, and takes stripe and panel layouts naturally.
A tufting gun pushes yarn through canvas stretched on a frame; latex holds the tufts and a backing cloth closes the underside. Cut and loop pile can be mixed in the same piece to give texture.
Wool fibre matted into a solid sheet under heat, moisture and pressure rather than woven, then cut and stitched into floor pieces. Felt holds a clean cut edge, so shapes and inlays can be worked into the surface.