Lately, I have been thinking of the many tremendously talented craftspeople who weave our breathtakingly beautiful rugs. The finished pieces are stunning, but the technical aspects of creating a rug also deserve some recognition. I come from a long line of textile craftspeople. I still own my great-grandmother’s hand-embroidered tablecloth, and I often think of my grandfather, the local lederhosen maker in the Tyrolean alps, and my mother, the couture tailor in post-war Germany, sewing Chanel. I myself was knitting my own socks at age 6 (still not very good at it, but that does not keep me from knitting them for my family). I designed and sewed couture in my teenage years, only to find it was way too difficult, but I found my passion in the thousands of colors of restoration yarns for antique rugs. I fell in love with the intensity of the antique rugs I worked to restore. I wove my soul into the fabric of the rugs. What a joyful occupation! And now I have the pleasure to find or design beautiful rugs for my clients, and with that, share all the knowledge I have gathered over the last 27 years in my field.

And in the spirit of great craftsmanship, we think of our amazing weavers in Nepal. The recent earthquakes have devastated this wonderful, fragile country. The best we can do is keep sending work there to give the people a sense of normalcy and stability. We will call on our own Erbil Tezcan and contribute funds that he will personally take to Nepal to distribute among the neediest of our weavers. To support this cause we will donate 10% of the selling price of a custom Tibetan rug to his fund. Please join with us in this effort.

– Christiane Millinger