Navajo Rugs - Two Grey Hills Rugs

Two Grey Hills is located to the east of the Chuska Mountains and south of Shiprock, New Mexico. Navajo rugs from this area feature intricate designs woven with natural sheep wool in varying hues of brown, cream and grey anchored with black and white. The black is typically over dyed to make a more solid contrast with the other colors. Two Grey Hills rugs will typically have a single or double serrated design as the central focus within the weaving. Other design elements such as geometrics, stair steps, even occasionally, pictorial elements will take up the balance of the weaving. A dark border typically surrounds the interior design elements.

Two Grey Hills weavings are believed to have started around 1911. Encouraged by two local traders, George Bloomfield and Ed Davies, weavers were encouraged to continually improve the quality of their rugs. Eschewing the reds of Ganado and wild distortions of Germantown weavings, Two Grey Hills weavers preferred the natural shades they were able to create by blending the brown, black and white wool of their own flocks.

Encouraged to excel in their weaving technique, even today, Navajo rugs from this area tend to have a higher thread count per inch than weavings from other areas of the Navajo reservation. While a typical contemporary Navajo rug will average around 30 wefts to the linear inch, Two Grey Hills weavings average around 45. The acknowledged master of Two Grey Hills weavings, Daisy Taugelchee was known to create tapestries with up to 115 wefts per linear inch.