In 1863, a carpet was manufactured at Kidderminster for presentation to
the late King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, on the occasion of his
marriage. In view of the natural desire to produce an article worthy of
the event and of the industry, it was recognised that no trouble and
expense should be spared; and a carpet was designed and woven in such a
way as to obviate the defects enumerated above. The carpet was exhibited
publicly and aroused much admiration.
It is curious, however, to note that it was not until about twenty years
later that the new principle began to be generally adopted by carpet
manufacturers. The delay in utilising the idea was no doubt due to
recognition of the heavy expense involved in additional designing and
card stamping, and of the loss of production, and also to the absence of
any severe competition from Oriental and other seamless carpets.
The device consisted simply in designing and stamping not two but five
parts of the whole carpet: the filling, the border at each side
including the corner piece, and the border at top and bottom. When, as
is almost invariably the case, the width of the border is less than 27
in., the difference between the width and 27 in. is stamped in body, so
that, for example, an outside breadth containing 18 in. of border and 9
in. of body is woven in a 27 in. loom. This breadth, of course, also
contains at each end the corner piece, and 9 in. of the end border. The
inner breadths of the carpet will have 18 in. of border at each end, and
filling in between, woven so as to match on to the filling and border of
the breadths on each side. If will be readily seen that in this manner
the different breadths of a carpet can be woven consecutively on the
same loom, and that a harmonious effect as regards both design and
surface can be ensured. (See Figs. 5 and 5A.)
[Illustration: FIG. 5 & 5A CHLIDEMA SQUARE]
The system has one or two minor limitations. The width of the carpet
must be some multiple of 2 ft. 3 in., and the matching of the side
borders with the corner pieces can only be perfect at certain lengths.
Again, the line of the seam is not concealed by coinciding with the
inner edge of the border; and, finally, these breadth squares are more
troublesome and expensive to make and handle at every stage than piece
goods. Indeed, manufacturers would be justified in charging a larger
difference of price between squares and pieces of the same quality than
many of them do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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