All forms of carpets, rugs and upholstery fabrics are made from one or more types of fibre. A fibre can be made from any number of products, and is normally put into two categories, which are ‘natural’ – either from an animal or vegetable source and ‘man-made’ – synthetics like Nylon. These fibres are then spun (or made) into a ‘yarn’.
For thousands of years man has been making floor coverings from the very basic weaving of grasses and other vegetable fibres – to the magnificent tapestry carpets that are now masterpieces, such as the Ardabil Mosque Carpet, the most famous piece of weaving in the world, which can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, it’s said to be woven in 1540 and contains 33,000,000 hand tied knots (380 per square inch).