Dorji Family 路 Gyantse Carpet Weavers

We tie each knot by hand, the same way my grandmother taught me. The pattern lives in our fingers before it appears in the wool.

The Dorji Family

The Dorji family has woven carpets in Gyantse for four generations. Gyantse鈥攎eaning 'victory peak' in Tibetan鈥攊s one of Tibet's three great carpet-weaving centres, alongside Lhasa and Shigatse. For over 600 years, the town's artisans have supplied carpets to monasteries, noble households, and the Potala Palace itself.

The Seni Technique

The family works using the seni (嘟︵胶嗉嬥綋嘟? warp-knot technique, distinct from the Turkish or Persian methods. Each knot is tied individually around the warp threads, then cut to create the pile surface. A skilled weaver completes approximately 80 knots per square inch鈥攁 Tibetan Dragon Rug at 160 脳 240 cm contains over 1.5 million individual knots.

Dorji began learning at age 14, watching his mother's hands before touching wool himself. 'The pattern lives in our fingers before it appears in the wool,' he says. Today his daughter carries the tradition forward, adapting colour palettes for contemporary interiors while preserving the knot structure unchanged.

Materials

Wool is sourced from highland sheep in the surrounding valleys, washed in river water, sun-dried on stone walls, and hand-spun on drop spindles. Natural dyes come from walnut husk (brown), madder root (terracotta), and indigo (blue-grey). No chemical dyes are used.

Working with ALPORA

ALPORA commissions each carpet to order. The Dorji family selects the wool, prepares the dyes, and weaves the piece over 2鈥? months. ALPORA provides contemporary colour direction; the family executes within their traditional technique. Each carpet is signed with the family's weaving mark on the reverse.