So I went to a dance show recently which feature lecturers at my University in London. They were pretty contemporary dances. Some of them were quite boring and went on for too long. One of the solos was about “the things we walk on and sit on”. These “things” were rugs mainly, sheep skins, and hippy rugs. When I walked into the performance space, which is a dance studio with the windows covered so the space was dark, although the space was darkened there was no atmosphere.

The floor was covered in rugs, some of them were not very nice. They smelt like incense and had holes in, most of the rugs were borrowed from friends and students, so it was expected that some of them had holes in. Some of the rugs were sheep skin, some were thin and some were thick and shaggy.

The piece featured multimedia with a film being played at the beginning, the dancer was lying in the position that she was in wen we all walked into the space. I thought she would do the movements on the screen at the same time as being played. She didn’t which was a shame because this would have had a nice continuation between media and live action.

Thick pile shaggy rugs are fashionable, comfortable and beautiful. They keep floors warm and bring great accents to the room. Try a contrasting colour and bring something modern to your rooms. Or if you already have a colour theme or a distinct colour in mind we can do colour matching to get an exact colour swatch if you provide us with a pantone colour or even a sample of the colour you want us to match.

The shaggy rugs that we make are luxurious and will last forever! Our rugs are made to order so all of our rugs are limited edition and if you choose a bespoke shape or cut out then your rug will be completely unique. Here at RugDesigner our rugs start at £99 per square metre so there is no excuse not to have a fabulous rug in your home!

Can rug hooking be used to make anything other than flat rugs? Well I never thought it was possible but as I was browsing through Etsy- a online folk art shopping website, I stubbled upon a woman who makes sculptures out of wool using the rug hooking technique. If a giant pineapple is not your idea of a centre piece for your dining room table, never fear as there are a lot of other designs to choose for as well as flat penny rugs that she has also made by hand. All of her products are 100% wool and naturally dyed.

I thought that her modern and contemporary take on the old technique is ingenious and I would very much like to get my hands on one of her cool creations, if only I had around $300 lying around.

The oldest oriental rug found is a Pazyryk carpet, encased in a solid block of ice, the rug was melted out of a burial tomb of a Scythian Royal. Carbon dating has shown that the the rug is over 2000 years old.

Little known factual evidence  can show rug weaving existed in Pazyryk in the 14th century, albeit some small remains and fragments of different rugs can be dated to be from around the 3rd, 6th and 11th century.

Western nations have taken interest in oriental carpets for several hundred years, there is very good evidence to suggest popular Western interest in oriental rugs for example, one early painting from 15th century depicts the Virgin Mary seated upon a throne above a rug. Several other paintings, particularly of royalty from this period onwards show a similar use of rugs.

Wool is one of the heaviest fibres in use meaning that rugs that are primarily wool are non slip. This is why we advise that an non-slip sheet underneath our rugs is unnecessary. If you have laminate flooring then a non-slip sheet can be used and probably should be used if you have a small rug.

Woollen rugs are also non allergenic so you have no need to worry about your family or pets having an adverse reaction to it. If you do however have a skin problem like eczema then it is advised not to spend too much time near wool as in some cases it makes the inflammation worse.

Wool is a very durable fabric and can last for many, many years. It is used in persian rugs and there is prove that these rugs last for hundreds of years. Soon we will have our own range of persian rugs for sale.

Her at rug designer we have some beautifully designed rugs to clear. They are all rather nicely sized rugs that can fit in to most living rooms. If you are looking for a cool and fashionable rug at a discounted price then click on our clearance rug section of our website.

We are very lucky to have new rugs on offer designed by the people over at Etoile home and Mini Moderns. All of the rugs have been designed especially for rug designer and will look awesome on any bedroom, living room or dining room floor. They come in standard sizes as the designs could stretch at different lengths and potentially spoil the effect.

So if you are looking for an original christmas idea, look no further than rug designer.

There isn’t much to say about rugs, believe me it is a limited subject. After you have written about where the rugs come from and how the are made it can get hard to come up with something original.

I have been writing this blog for a while now and I have to write about 3 a week which is hard because I can’t find something new each time I write a blog. There are certain things even I find is uninspiring,  like how expensive a persian rug is. I don’t even understand why… is it because they are so prestigious, or maybe their beauty? Some of them are blatantly not very well made either, like cheap copies.

As I have now taken over the company (for a bit) the pressure is on for me to get things done. I can’t be slacking off because I have a lot more responsibilities, like writing this blog for example now feels like a waste of time when I should be taking payments or sorting deliveries, but instead I buckle down and find some new material to write about.

Shaggy rugs are probably my favourite type of rug that we supply. I like the feel of them and there dense pile.

Well I have to go and take a payment so this is the end of this.

Until Friday, bye for now.

The sale of the spectacular rug will be handled by Sotheby’s and the auction will be the first for their new offices in Doha. Commissioned by the Maharaja of Baroda in India in the 18th century, the Pearl Carpet was created using an estimated two million natural seed pearls farmed from the Arabian Gulf. Embossed with gold set diamonds, rubies and emeralds in their hundreds, the centre piece of the exquisite rug are three large round rosettes put together using table cut diamonds set in silvered gold. This rug is seriously blinged out!

Originally intended to be gifted to the tomb of the prophet Mohammed in Medina, the Baroda rug never made it to its intended destination as “Gaekwar” Kande Rao, the Maharaja of Baroda, died before the rug could be delivered. The persian silk rug designed to echo a similar rug that exists in the Taj Mahal, the Baroda example has remained in the Indian princely family since the Maharaja’s death, briefly appearing at exhibitions such as the 1985 landmark exhibition ‘India’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 2008, to spend £50m on a new house seems excessive to say the least but to then splurge another £30m on doing it up  is mind boggling. But the super-prime section of the London property market is an exclusive world, with laws of its own. Indeed, the new Kazakh owners of the grandest house on The Bishops Avenue, north London’s billionaires’ row, believe they bagged a bargain when they bought the Toprak Mansion earlier this month.

But the decor, it seems, is not right! Despite the five reception rooms, nine main bedrooms and 16 bathrooms, all spread over 23,000 sq ft, the place is to too small. So, although Toprak, with his woollen rugs, one of the most expensive new-build properties sold in Britain at the time, this house has probably been lived in for less than a week or so since it was completed in 2001, the owners are calling in the builders and the bespoke rug designers.

By the time they’ve finished, as well as all the basics de rigueur for the self-respecting billionaire – such as wireless audiovisuals, pressurised purified water on tap and automatic security shutters, they will also build a new 30-seat cinema, squash and tennis courts, a billiards room, a beauty salon, a 24-carat gold-plated whirlpool bath, a new staff lift and a small river, complete with canoe. Even the helicopter gets its own lift: the helipad in the garden will sink into the ground and the roof will slide across the top.

The end result, expected to cover 42,000 sq ft, looks certain to outclass its next-door neighbour, Lakshmi Mittal, whose own 25,000 sq ft house, Summer Palace, can be peered into from the mansion’s 80ft main reception room. (Not that Mittal is often there: the Indian steel magnate spends most of his time at his other home in Kensington Palace Gardens, west London.)

But where are the carpets and rugs? Currently being imported from india and expected to be laid on every floor in the mansion.

The people of Winnipeg, canada, who are buying handmade rugs from Pakistan could be throwing out a lifeline for about 200 flooded-out artisan families- more work.

“That’s what they want,” said Yousaf Chaman, the director of the Mennonite Central Committee’s rug program. Chaman,  the Pakistan-born and raised American helps run a fair trade program for rug-makers whose rugs are sold at MCC’s Ten Thousand Villages stores.

“They have temporary help, food and shelter but the biggest desire we hear from the artisans is ‘I want to get back to work and to normalcy,’ ” said Chaman who visited the artisans in May.

“Beyond income, it’s the routine you have,” said Chaman, who spoke to his counterparts in Lahore last wednesday morning about the plight of the artisan villagers.

When the flood hit, 200 of the 850 rug-making families scrambled to save their unfinished rugs, looms and equipment. The anchors of the loom are unfortunately buried more than half an metre into the ground and had to be left behind.

“The situation is, so far, that they can’t get work. They’ve got no house, no loom installed. People are basically sitting in tents. Most of their houses are still under water,” said Chaman. It may take months for the water to recede and begin to rebuild people’s homes, he said.