Machine Made Outdoor Rugs made from DuraCord

Is your gut reaction to the idea of machine-made rugs summed up by words like "bristly" and "boring"? Then prepare to be pleasantly surprised - because our selection of machine-made rugs runs in entirely the opposite direction!

A negative initial reaction is certainly understandable. Outdoor rugs, typically made to be glued down, are also typically woven from coarse plastic yarns treated to withstand heavy sun, and to resist mold and mildew. So such rugs do feel rough, sometimes downright abrasive. They also tend to reflect sunlight, making them seem shiny - of course, that may actually be a plus, since they can be pretty dull to look at otherwise! Design, to put it mildly, has often been sorely lacking.

However, rapid advances in textiles manufacturing in recent years have allowed for a whole new standard for machine-made outdoor rugs: extreme durability, genuine softness, appealing designs.

It's now possible to produce 100-percent synthetic fibers so remarkably thin they can be woven into yarn that mimics the softness of cotton. The yarns used in our machine-made rugs actually go one better still: They not only feel like cotton, they look like it, too. Gone is that off-putting sheen so common to previous generations of textile synthetics.

Improvements in sunlight protection mean these surprisingly soft yarns are now even tougher against the damaging effects of UV rays. Fading, as well as staining, is hampered by the coloring process itself: Color isn't applied to the surface of the finished yarn, but blended into the synthetic fiber even as it's being made. Rot-, mold- and mildew-resistance have also been greatly enhanced.

These welcome changes have opened the gates for designers to really have some fun. The only true creative boundary now is the number of colors available at one time, since machine-made rugs are generally limited by production methods to no more than five yarn colors.

This streamlined manufacturing process offers several practical benefits for the potential rug buyer.

Since rug-weaving machines aren't made to handle the highly detailed designs possible with handmade rugs, machine-made ones use much less yarn. That means machine-made rugs typically weigh a lot less than their handmade cousins - so the outdoor rug you might be buying for your back deck could then easily be rolled up and carted out into the yard, or off to the beach, to serve as a cozy, comfy site for watching a sunset, for instance, or having a romantic picnic. Less yarn also equals less cost to you - quite a bit less, in fact. So just think, with the money you'd save buying machine-made, you'd be able to afford a far better bottle of wine for that picnic! View our exclusive video featuring the designer of these outdoor area rugs.