Wool
Wool is a fantastic fibre! When you invest in a rug in high quality wool it carries all the good properties you need for your indoor environment.

Wool is resilient and durable. The wool fibre is naturally flexible and springs back after pressure. This is why you rarely see any traces of footsteps or furniture in a wool rug. A wool rug keeps its resilience over the years. A research published in National Geographic, vol 173, Nr. 5, 1988 states that:
Wool can be bent 20 000 times before breaking, while viscose only can be bent 75 times before breaking.

The wool fibre is porous and has the ability to absorb and keep humidity. Wool being anti-static means it does not attract dirt and dust, as other fibres do.

Wool has, contrary to other fibres, a natural flame protection. It does not melt, and it is self-extinguishing. Wool is inflammable and does not catch fire if a flame from the fireplace fall onto the rug.

Wool is resistant to bacteria, mould and mildew. Being anti-bacterial means a wool rug contributes to reducing these allergy triggers from the indoor air. Wool rugs improve the air quality by absorbing and neutralizing the pollutants formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. These are volatile organic compounds that can be released from many common household items, electronic devises and furniture. This information can also be downloaded from AG research/Woolmark.

The ability of the wool fibre to keep out dirt and bad smell is one of the explanations for the quality and the longevity of a wool rug. Wool contains the dirt repellent Lanolin, which also prevents spilled liquids from entering the rug. To keep your rug clean and neat it is often sufficient enough to vacuum the rug, and to sometimes hang the rug out to air. The old housewife advice to take to rug out in the cold and clean newly fallen snow works perfectly, but it is not very often nowadays that this possibility is given.

Imagine the feeling of walking on a warm and soft wool rug. The sensation of cosy warmth a wool rug brings to a room you will never get with synthetic fibres or viscose. Wool also has a much better ability to isolate from humidity and coldness than other fibres.

Wool is biodegradeable!

Linen
Linen is used both as yarn and as warp in the weaving of the majority of Kateha’s rugs. Linen shrinks during the first wash only, done before warp setting and weaving, why it keeps its shape as finished rug. Preparing the flax plant for production of linen yarn is a long sustainable process: from harvest, retting, breaking, scutching and heckling to spinning. The durability of linen as a commodity and from an environmental standpoint implies it is a fibre of the future – a material that retains its beauty.

Linen warp is in a class of its own. A rug woven on linen warp guarantees a superior form stability. It is, however, more difficult to work with, demanding special skills both in setting up the warp and in weaving. A craft that requires both experience and expertise.

Within the Kateha collection there is a hand tufted linen rug. It is a densely tufted luxurious linen pile rug, from wet spun linen of the highest quality. Linen rugs, just as wool rugs, are anti-bacterial and anti-allergenic. The linen is temperature regulating.

Cotton
Cotton has been cultivated in India on a large scale for more than 5,000 years. It is a popular and frequently used natural fibre being used in all kinds of interiors.

Its inner spiral-construction makes the cotton fibre extremely strong. Its levels of stretchability and elasticity are low, but higher than for linen. It is highly resistant both to heat and light.  We use cotton warp in our Kelim rugs that have many colour shifts in the weft row, and when stretchability is needed for weaving wool pile into the rug on our woven “flossa” rugs.