BENI OURAIN RUGS
HANDWOVEN in the ATLAS MOROCCO.

1.

AUALIRUG’s Beni Ourain rug is 100% Made from natural wool. There’s a specialised Atlas Mountain breed of sheep used to make these rugs, a breed developed centuries ago and unique to the mountainous areas of Morocco. Our Beni Ourain area rugs are double knotted and normally It takes 50-100 coats to make a standard sized rug of 2cm x 3cm, which weighs around 18kg.

2.
Live wool is softer as it still contains the oils from the sheep’s skin and also fluffier. The Berber sheep wool is a bit more yellow in colour, more on the beige and cream side as opposed to white. The wool from the sheep must be cleaned and scoured to remove the natural oils. otherwise the natural oils may keep a sheep comfortable but would make transforming the wool into a rug an impossible struggle.

The wool dries in the summer sun.

3.
The wool is then combed to make it ready for spinning. Our women spin the wool into long strings of yarn using just their hands, shins, and wooden dowels. This spinning process transforms the wool. It twists fibbers together and makes yarn. Different yarns are hand-spun for the warp, weft and pile. The wool is spun into threads that are perfect for weaving and is ready for the next process of dyeing. When you buy an Aualirug Berber rug, you’ll always know that the warp is made from 100% natural wool.

4.
Now, the yarn is either left as natural, or dyed using natural dyes if the pattern is colourful and then returned to the workshop.

Our rugs are woven with a little weft between the knots, which guarantee that the rug is truly dense.

5.

The next part of the rug making process is knotting. This is where you can see the true talents of the craftspeople. Our rugs are woven with a little weft between the knots which enables it creates a rug that’s truly dense. Our rugs is double knotted and the thickness is around 3cm-5cm. Mostly it needs 2 women working together on a rug from start to finish. This can take well over a month of tying knots.

6.
The finished rugs are then doused with water, scrubbed clean, and draped over wooden racks and dry naturally in the warm sun.We wash the rug 2-3 times again to ensure it is soft. Sometimes we even wash it more than 3 times before it is ready for customers.