What is Tufting
and how does it work?
What is tufting in general, how does carpet tufting work and where did it come from? I'm Jenni from Tuftinglove and today we're going to talk about the basics of carpet tufting.
I'll explain everything you need to know about tufting.
When I started tufting in 2020, there was almost no information for hobby tufters on the internet. Even today, many of those who attend my workshops and see the tufting machine for the first time still have some unanswered questions. If you would like to attend workshops at Tuftinglove, you can find them here.
That's why I'll answer the most common questions about the fluffy rugs in this blog:
- What is tufting?
- How does tufting work?
- What happens when you tuft a stitch with the tufting machine?
- What types of tufting are there?
- Origin and history of tufting
The colorful world of tufting, summarized for you.
What is tufting?
Tufting is a manufacturing technique used to provide a textile surface with a pile. You could think of it as a cross between sewing and embroidery. By pile, you can imagine wool or yarn tips that form the surface of your fluffy carpet, for example. It is the most commonly used manufacturing technique for carpets, high-quality interior fittings for cars or aircraft and artificial turf.
For these products, the cut pile technique is used, but loops can also be created. These are also used to make velour fabrics. So, tufting can be used to make many things. Not only carpets can be tufted, your toothbrush is tufted too. But of course, we are not here to talk about the manufacturing process of your toothbrush.
The great thing is that you can now make a rug for your bedroom, a tufted wall hanging, your own personalized denim jacket patch, beautiful tufted wool coasters (like the ones we made at our Christmas workshop), a fluffy tufted bucket hat, great sculptures, a tufted fluffy pillow and much more!
How does tufting work?
How does it work?
How does one of the fluffiest and most colorful crafts work, and maybe your new hobby, rug tufting? Maybe you already know punchneedleing, but, like me, you always thought, “I don't have the patience for that...” Well, then you've come to the right place. May I introduce you to the rug tufting machine!
With this machine, you can turn your ideas into reality.
You just thread the tufting machine with the appropriate yarn or wool and you're ready to go. For beginners, we distinguish between the AK-I cut pile tufting machine and the AK-II loop pile tufting machine. Both of these machines are super beginner-friendly and you can achieve a lot of different design options with them. If you are looking for a tufting machine with a few more features, check out our AK-V!
Threading is much easier than with a sewing machine, we promise!
To actually tuft, you work with a special fabric, tufting cloth, which is stretched on a frame. You poke through the fabric, press the machine against it and start the thing. And before you know it, you've made your first rug!
Important to know: We work from the back of the rug. The surface of the rug is created on the other side of the tufting frame and you tuft your pattern mirror-inverted on the frame. So we actually have to turn our designs around.
What happens when you tuft a stitch with the tufting machine?
The yarn is threaded through the needle hole by the thread guide and with each stitch, these tiny scissors come out. They push the thread onto the other side of the tufted fabric and cut it at the end. This is how these tiny snippets are created, which are squashed into the base material like a small V. They are the so-called pile, which we know from the beautiful and soft tufted carpets.
This is how the fluffy snippets get into the fabric.
That is why we have to attach the pile of the rug to the backing somehow. So, once we have tufted our entire rug, we glue the back so that the threads stay in place.
Since no knots are made during tufting, the back is glued.
What types of tufting are there?
Machine tufting vs. hand tufting
Both are done with the help of a machine, but hand tufting is what you see on Instagram, Youtube and TikTok, as opposed to machine tufting, where a robot tufts the rugs. In hand tufting, we guide the machine by hand to create the desired pattern. This is also much more fun.
Open cut pile and loop pile
With loop pile, it is a continuous, loose weave. You can see the difference between the two models in the pictures below. They show that the look of the two types of cut is very different.
Here is a comparison of cut pile (left) and loop pile (right).
It pushes the yarn through the fabric instead of cutting it. This creates a kind of continuous weave. With loop pile tufting, you can see the direction you tufted in. So you could tuft an entire piece with the same colored yarn and just make the pattern visible by tufting in different directions.
Here the pattern is also recognizable without different colors.
There are more advanced machines, such as the AK-III, which can produce piles up to 60 mm high. The perfect entry-level tufting machine is clearly the AK-I Cut Pile. It is lightweight, easy to use and even offers the option of trying out loops with a small hack.
Origin and history of tufting
The word tufting means to adorn something with a ball or bundle of threads. It describes a technique for creating textile surfaces with a pile (the fluffy part of a carpet). It can be considered a mixture of sewing and quilting, and it is the most commonly used technique for making carpets worldwide. The craft dates back to ancient times in Persia, Egypt and China.
The historical origin of tufting goes back to the 18th century, when farmers in Pennsylvania reused the cut wick ends from their candle production to decorate their bedding and form small tufts. This tradition was almost completely lost during the Civil War. In 1895, a young girl in Dalton, Georgia, began experimenting with an untreated cotton fabric, pricking a pattern on it with a needle and thick thread. She then cut all the loops that had been created and washed the fabric several times with hot water. This caused the fabric to shrink and imprint the tufting pattern. She did this to get a bedspread for her bed.
In 1920, the demand for such bedspreads increased dramatically. So a mechanical solution had to be found. The vision was to take a strong Singer sewing machine and modify it so that it could be used for mechanical tufting. This is a process known today as tabletop tufting.
This is still how many bathroom rugs, for example, are made. It is difficult to determine when the switch from large tufting machines to hand tufting machines occurred. In 1969, the company now known as Hoffmann Hand Tufting began experimenting with hand tufting. What began as an increase in productivity became a way to express oneself creatively with the hand tufting machine. And so today we are able to tuft our own carpet patterns at home.
You can find the sources and further information here:
If you still have questions, feel free to write them in the comments below and I will be happy to answer them or even make another blog post out of them.
Have a fluffy day
Jenni from Tuftinglove <3
