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The Leading Centre For Carpet Weaving: Uttar Pradesh
Although carpets are woven all over the country, Uttar Pradesh leads with
about 10 centres churning out 90 percent of the production and housing 75
percent of the weavers. The main centers are Mirzapur, Bhadohi, Khamaria
and about 500 villages in this area. It has been for long the most
important market for carpets, with a great reputation. 
The Themes And The Designs
Though there is not much originality in the designs used, the local
carpet weavers have some special designs of their own. The designs include
the Taj Mahal, in natural colour or any tint and 'Sirdar' in plain body
and subdued colours with hand embossed or hand carved borders in
rose-beige, honey-beige, ivory and soft green.
They also make use of the 18th century designs with short clippings of
the yarn around the contours of the pattern to give it a sculpturesque
look. Mostly pastel shades are used but intermingled with bright colours.
The Dextrous Craftsmen
There is a lot of proficiency involved in the making of designs, as the
entire process is dependent on the careful execution of the design. The
design is carefully prepared on a graph paper with extreme care. Twisted
cotton thread is used for the finer weaves and sometimes jute twine for
the rougher qualities.
The weaver twists the thread into two-warp threads for weaving and ties
the knot. The carpets of this region are mostly in medium quality and the
knots are around 60 per sq. inch as the sculptured styled carpets do not
call for a large number of knots. These carpets are popular export items
today.
The Hub Of Carpet Weaving
Agra in Uttar
Pradesh is one of the old carpet centers of the Mughal days. It produces
both the traditional as well as the new designs. The weaving is done under
the "calling out" system, in which the master weaver follows the
design and keeps calling out to the weavers the colors to be used for each
knot.
Among the oriental design carpets made, the Indo-Ispahan and Indo- Kashan
are alike except that the former has the long leaf and the latter the
small leaf and flower.
In Shahjahapur, both cotton and woollen carpets are made. The designs are
of the old, Persian style. The overall base color is a clear soft scarlet
and the field diapered with golden yellow diamond shapes scattered around,
broken by a black line wandering through the field.
The border is formed by geometrical yellow floral and dark lineated leaf
design rising at right angles to a black centre line. Among the
traditional designs are 'kethariwala jal', 'jainamaz takhdar'.