Feke, Isaac Royall, 1741.

1. Floors Carpets Feke, Isaac Royall, 1741.

2. Floors Axminster Carpet Axminster. Early 19th-century English Axminster with damask-inspired field in green, highlighted by a Rococo border. Fred Moheban Gallery, New York. Axminster carpet was made originally in a factory founded at Axminster, Devon, England, in 1755 by the cloth weaver Thomas Whitty. A variety of Turkey carpet, woven by machine or on a hand loom. Resembling somewhat the Savonnerie carpets produced in France, Axminster carpets were Ghiordes knottedin wool on woolen warps and had a weft of flax or hemp. Consisting of strips of worsted chenilleso colored as to produce a pattern on a stout jute backing. Unlike the Wilton weave, almost all pile yarn appears on the surface. It is soft. Uses unlimited colors in design made by looping the tufts, one color at a time, and then interlocking the weft about them.

3. Floors Axminster Carpet — Machine-Woven Axminster types. Cholleton. • Axminster carpets, in which all of the pile yarn is effectively used for design (unlike Wilton and Brussels that waste some “dead” pile yarn by hiding it in the body of the carpet) include: • chenille • spool • gripper • Axminster carpets that offers great pattern definition. Most Axminster carpets are patterned. • Machine-woven Axminsters were developed in the 19th century. • Hand-knotted Axminster carpets continued • to be hand-woven.

4. Floors Axminster Carpet — Chenille Chenille Axminster. 1. (Top) Chenille cloth, the first step in making machine-woven chenille Axminster carpets. 2. Chenille fur (pile) after cutting. 3. Cut-and-folded chenille fur. 4. Transverse section of chenille, showing fur inserted. 5. Section of chenille. The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Chenille Axminster was patented in 1839 by James Templeton of Glasgow, Scotland. These are called chenille, or “patent chenille Axminsters,” or “patent Axminsters” in reference (deference) to the more expensive, hand-knotted Axminster rugs. These were woven in two stages: 1. Weave the chenille “fur” (pile) of the carpet. 2. Weave the pile into a fabric foundation that served as a carpet backing. Templeton Axminsters were seamless and up to 33 feet wide. Chenille eventually succumbed in 1968 due to production of tufted carpets, starting in the late 1940s.

5. Floors Axminster Carpet Moquette Mills (East Side), Alexander Smith & Sons’ Carpet Co. Source: Yonkers Illustrated, Friends of Philipse Manor Hall, Yonkers, New York. Alexander Smith started a carpet manufacturing plant in 1845 in West Farms, New York. An American, Halcyon Skinner, had perfected the power loom for making Royal Axminster in 1876. Skinner and Alexander Smith combined, forming Alexander Smith & Sons’ Carpet Company. Sixteen hundred people were employed at his factory at the time of Smith’s death in 1878. In 1929 Alexander Smith & Sons was the largest manufacturer of carpets and rugs in the world.

6. Floors Axminster Carpet — Spool Axminster Patterned spool Axminster loom. Each spool travedl a compete circuit to produce on patterned weave. The Wool Bureau and Brintons Limited. Halcyon Skinner, had perfected the power loom for making Royal Axminster in 1876. He used endless chains of wool rather than the two-step chenille method. This produced to weave Royal Axminster carpets, also known as spool Axminster.

7. Floors Axminster Carpet — Spool Axminster Spool Axminster loom,Cholleton. This name spool Axminster comes from the spools on which the yarns are wound before the carpet is woven. This is the most complex loom used in carpet manufacturing.

8. Floors Axminster Carpet Brintons in Axminster. Factory circa 1870. Brintons National Trust collection: Uppark (in topiary), Oesterly (in gold). Making carpets since 1770, in 1892 Brintons of Kidderminster perfected another type of Axminster loom still used today. It is known as a “gripper Axminster.” The loom uses a Jacquard attachment to control individual grippers that plant tufts of colors to through a backing membrane to form the pattern. Gripper looms are easier to prepare than spool looms, and are used when small runs of custom carpeting are needed. Gripper looms generally limit patterns to 16 colors, including those added by careful “planting” — replacing a standard color in the pattern with a special one. The world’s leader in manufacturing Axminsters, this sixth-generation company makes its own looms for production.

9. Floors Axminster Carpet Brintons patterns from the archive. Brintons have amassed an archive which includes a wealth of hand-painted designs with the earliest dating back to 1790 The design Library was started with Henry Shaw’s The Encyclopaedia of Ornament published in 1842 the whole collection is now categorised by style, historical period and date . Brintons has developed a vast CAD design library which constitutes an rich design resource covering every style and period.

10. Floors Axminster Carpet Marshall Field and Karastan Axminster.Bergama Karastan, Vintage Road Collection. Industrialist/retailer Marshall Field had a traditional Axminster weaving loom modified to create a machine-made rug woven through the back, just like a handmade Oriental. A spool Axminster machine that allowed for as many as 50 colors in a single rug. Karastan, which started as part of Marshall Field department store, first began manufacturing rugs in 1928. Today, Karastan is located in Eden, NC, and falls under the umbrella of Mohawk Industries, Inc.

11. Floors Axminster Carpet Axminster, Poppy, William Morris, 1875. From J.R. Burrows & Company. Poppy Axminster carpet was designed by William Morris in 1875. Shown at "The Vale," the Lyman Estate in Waltham, Massachusetts. Design date — c. 1875-1925 Design number — 19/4125 Pattern —  Repeat 14" self match