Navajo Ganado Rug, c. 1930

Lorenzo Hubbell, a famous early trader at his post in Ganado, Arizona was the creator of the Ganado Red Navajo rug style. He loved and encouraged the use of deep rich red dyed wool for the background color. Design elements from the early Navajo blankets were incorporated into these Ganado Red rugs.

Today the Ganado rugs will have a red background with accent colors of black, grey, white or brown. The central design features a single or double diamond and four triangles, one in each corner. Other design elements may include hook patterns, simple diagonals and cloud or stair design borders.

Noted weavers would include Sadie Curtis, Ruby Hubbard, Sarah Tisi, and Elverna Vanwinkle.

Modern Navajo Weavings in the Traditional Styles

Navajo weaver Treva Peshlakai of Kirtland, New Mexico wove her Second Phase Chief’s rug in the size 60” wide x 55” high. All single-ply weft yarn is 100% Navajo Churro Sheep wool. The design replicates a Classic/Late Classic Period, 12-spot Second Phase Chief's Blanket. The hand-dyed colors are the authentic indigo blue, and the aniline black, camel tan and red. The two x two-strand warp selvage cords at each end are a black. Treva weaves rugs with two warps inside the outer warp channel for extra strength, instead of weaving weft selvage cords outside the edges of her rugs. The four strands of black cords on the ends are knotted into tassels at the corners. The warp is mill spun, single ply white wool. The woven density is eight warps per inch and 28 wefts per inch.

Chase These Blues Away: Yei Rugs

From the Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery Inc. website:

Yei pattern rugs feature images of the Holy People drawn from ceremonial sand paintings but do not recreate an entire painting. The closely related Yeibechai rugs show Navajo dancers in the act of portraying Yeis in ceremonies. 

Typically, the Yeis are highly stylized figures with elongated bodies, short straight legs, and heads facing the viewer. Yebechais have somewhat more human proportions, usually face sideways, and often have legs bent in a dancing motion. The earliest Yei rugs usually included one or two large Yei figures oriented vertically, e. g. parallel with the warp. In some cases, small Yei images were included in rugs with geometric patterns or other pictorial elements. 

Though quite rare, these early types were made over a period of nearly four decades, falling out of favor by the 1930s. 

In the 1910s, a very small number of weavers made single figure type rugs which portrayed not the Navajo Yei, but rather Hopi Katsina figures with characteristic tableta headdresses.

The more common types of Yei and Yeibechai rugs feature multiple figures oriented parallel with the weft threads so that the rug appears wider than long when the figures are upright. 

Two distinct styles emerged in the 1920s. Those made in the area of Shiprock, New Mexico tend to have light colored backgrounds with no border, and often use brightly colored commercial yarns. Yeis and Yeibechais made in the central part of the reservation, in northeastern Arizona, tend to have dark backgrounds with simple borders. They are more likely to incorporate natural wool colors and more subdued chemical shades. 

Yeis continue to be very popular with collectors and are now being made in nearly all parts of the reservation.

Chase These Blues Away: Navajo Weaving Art - Crosses and Triangles