Unique designs are made in a variety of styles and colors, using many techniques. This gives today's floorcloths the ability to be created for any style interior.
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A floorcloth A floorcloth, or floor-cloth, is a cloth, normally of flannel, used for cleaning floors. The term was previously used also for materials used in place of carpeting or to protect expensive carpets, such as oilcloth, Kamptulicon, linoleum or other materials. This use is considered somewhat antiquated today, though do-it-yourself decorators still use floorcloths as a customizable alternative to rugs. Some artists have elected to use floorcloths as a medium of expression.
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Most modern floorcloths are made of heavy, unstretched canvas with two or more coats of gesso. They are then painted and varnished to make them waterproof. Area canvas rugs, today known as floorcloth, had their start in 18th century England. Initially used by the wealthy, the designs and patterns mimicked parquet flooring, tile and marble.
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As these useful furnishings found their way into middle-class homes, the variety of patterns grew. When American colonists became independent from England, they also began to create their own floorcloths. Eventually the development of linoleum eliminated the interest in these rugs. However, in the past few decades, the desire to decorate homes in a more personal way has stimulated their popularity.
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The coarser kinds are used as floorcloths and hangings to the huts; the finer as sails, or sleeping-mats, or for children. Floor-mats are 5 to 8 yards in length, sail-mats 100 and more. Sleeping-mats are of two kinds - a thicker to lie on, and a thinner for covering; one of the most valued sorts has a pleat running through the middle of each strip of plaiting. Borders are worked on with designs in darker bands; white feathers and scraps of European stuffs are woven in.
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According to the geographic classification made by Dr. Javier Pulgar Vidal, Pallasca lies within the denominated Quechua Region. For that reason, its climate is relatively tempered, which does not prevent torrential rains between the months of November and March which feed the territory's crops which are the basic sustenance of the town. The fact that it belongs to the Quechua Region does not, however, mean that the ancestral Language of the Incas is spoken there. Pallasca is basically an agrarian district, dedicated mainly to the culture of la papa, maize and wheat; being, in addition, significant the gained raising of ganado vacunoand lanar; another occupation, in smaller scale, is artisanal crafts, mainly in the weave of "bayetas" (floorcloths), ponchos, etc.
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