The Navajo are known as master weavers today and have been acknowledged as such since the 1800s. They typically use wool, which they obtained from sheep they began raising after the Spanish introduced the animals around 1600 C.E. The Navajo blankets first had striped designs, though increased contact with Spain and Mexico influenced their designs to resemble the colors and patterns found in Mexican serapes and blankets. Navajo women began dying yarn red using Mexican cochineal, an insect, and though they began using other colored dyes and yarn, red was a favorite (Furst and Furst 1982, 34).
With the increase of contact with whites, Navajo blankets began to be commercialized and went from being wearing blankets to rugs. The Navajo changed some of their designs to accommodate the rugs by adding borders. Some whites would bring pictures based on non-Indian designs, such as Oriental rugs, and the Navajo weavers would interpret these designs into their own rugs for sale. The commercialization led to a decrease in quality until around the mid-1900s, when some traders sponsored a revival of traditional weaving, which has continued in some areas to today (Furst and Furst 1982, 35).
