Navajo Rugs
Native American weaving have been known since late 90s of 19th century. These navajo rugs are usually being connected with Navajo wool blankets. Most of these blankets were flat banket covering. Today Navajo rugs are woven on reservations in northern Arizona. Original styles consisted of stripes and simple geometric shapes.
Four major stage of Navajo weaving can be single out: Chief blankets, Serape blankets, Eye Dazzler weavings, and moden days fabrics.
The most known Navajo blankets are the Chief blankets. These blankets could have been worn by any person(not only the chiefs as it may sees at fist).
These blanket were used to wrap around the body for the purposes of protection from bad weather. To be comfortable to do this these blankets were made with their width much longer than their length(That has defined most comon size of modern navajo rugs). They all had horizontal lines at each end of the blanket.
These were colored in red and brown.
Serape blankets are another type of Navajo blanket(woven from about 1830s to 1870s). They are long rather than wide, unlike the Chief blankets. Their design consist of a combination of diamonds, stripes and zigzags. The colors used in Serape blankets are red, beige, yellow, blue and black.
By the end of 19th century, Navajo weaving moved from blankets to rugs to respond to the interest of the the traders. Navajo rugs also became popular on the market. Subjects of everyday life and the nature motif(houses, arrows, trains,and symbols) are the major to be pictured on Navajo rugs