Abrash
The colour variation that runs horizontally across a textile when the dye batch changes between rows. A flaw is what the merchant calls it. The weaver knows it as the record of how the piece was made.
Abrash (from the Arabic for "spotted" or "mottled") appears as horizontal striations within what is nominally a single-colour area of a rug. It occurs because the dye bath or wool batch changed partway through weaving, either a new dye lot was begun, a different fleece source was introduced, or the mordant varied. The weaver was not trying to create a colour variation; it happened as a natural result of the weaving process.
In antique and vintage rugs, abrash is widely considered a desirable quality, evidence of hand-made authenticity, natural materials, and the passage of time. It creates a visual animation within colour fields that uniform dyeing cannot replicate. A flat, perfectly uniform colour field in a "vintage" rug is sometimes a sign of chemical treatment or overdyeing, which is far less desirable.
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