TAPPETI DI ARMUNGIA CASA LUSSU

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Armungia is a small village on the highlands of  Gerrei, in the south-east of Sardinia. “Casa Lussu” is a hand weaving housework; here it is possible to attend activities and workshops about organic dyeing of wool yarns and weaving,  as well as to be accommodated.

In our workshop we knead Sardinian sheep wool, that sometime we enjoy dyeing by ourselves at home,  with plants and fruits from natural flora of our territory (walnut, pomegranate, elderberry, fig leaves, an so on). Traditional weaving is realised on horizontal wood looms, using the so called “a litzos” or “launched weaves” technique. 

Laying the warp is a hand made traditional work and it is realized alongside Casa Lussu’ courtyard walls. This weaving technique creates geometric patterns whose matrix is outlined during the loom fitting. The result is a “rose” or “lemon leaf” or “broom” or other motifs that are so called on the basis of the images that resemble the real ones.  

The warp threads pass through a system of heddle eyes that are connected to some pedals which produce different interweaving. Weave sequences can be combined in order to create different geometric design.

In this way, each fabric becomes a unique piece of work, thanks to the assortment of motifs and to the variety of weave yarn: wool, linen, cotton of every kind of thickness and coloration. Nowadays this kind of weaving is not too much common in Sardinia, so our work come from the recovery of the traditional motifs with a perspective that we call of “dynamic conservation”: i.e. we maintain techniques, wood looms and design patterns but we experiment different sizes and combination of colors.

Until the 60s, weaving teaching was handed down orally. In Armungia some weavers began to schematize these designs on paper. These pattern have been handed down from our grandmother Giovanna to us, in order to avoid the risk that all this cultural heritage could be forever lost.