The art of making our rugs

Follow a Tapistelar rug's journey: each piece takes up to three months to manufacture and is built to last. Our rugs begin as hand-painted artwork and are designed in-house before being shipped to our community in Colombia. Traditional skills passed down through generations are used by expert craftspeople here.

You're in good hands

The fibres used in our designs come from fique plants grown and processed by local families in the mountainous region of Santander, Colombia.

 

 

A new take on workmanship

To extract the fibres from the leaves, they cut the outermost layer of the plant –so that it may continue growing– and manually remove the pulp.

 

 

Colombian sun's transformation

The resulting fibres are dried in the sun, while the pulp is used as fertiliser in nearby crops. The dried fibres are then immersed in boiling water, dyed with natural dyes, and once again sun-dried. It also prevents color change in the long run. Next, they comb the fibres to soften them and separate the short fibres from the long ones, as only the latter are used to weave the carpets in manual looms once transferred to Bogotá.

 

 

Final adjustments

For stability and durability, the edges are carefully finished by hand-fringing and binding.

 

 

Designing responsibly

Each of our carpets can be tracked all the way down to the weaver thanks to close relationships to our communities.