Area Rug How They’re Made

Being familiar with area rug construction also helps you understand and evaluate performance aspects: why certain rugs wear better and longer. Understanding how area rugs are created helps you better determine rug value and keep you inside the borders of your budget.

Machine made

• Less expensive
• Not considered investments
• More flexibility and variety
• Woven rugs created on automated weaving looms
• Elaborate designs created by the placement of different colors of yarn

Man-made

• Handmade (also called hand knotted)
• Custom-made
• One of a kind designs
• Incorporate creative, brilliant uses of color
• Unique details and intricacies in each due to the village, city or country of the creator
• Often created with natural dyes for color longevity
• Considered an investment
• Many become heirlooms
• Ancient and unique process

Elements that tie any handmade rug together

WEAVE

• A technique used in making handmade rugs

Three major techniques: pile weave, flat weave and hand-tufted

Pile Weave

• Method of weaving used in most rugs
• The rug is woven by a creation of knots
• Different weaving groups use different types of knots
• Every single knot is tied by hand
• Can consist of 25 to over 1000 knots per square inch
• Skillful weavers tie knots in about ten seconds (meaning it would take a skillful weaver 6,480 hours to weave a 9x12-foot rug with a density of 150 knots per square inch)
• Time reduced with workshops or multiple weavers

Flat Weave

• Technique of weaving where no knots are used
• Warp strands used as the foundation
• Weft stands are used as the foundation and in the patterns
• Called flat weaves since no knots are used in the weaving process and the surface looks flat

Hand Tufted

• Created without tying knots into the foundation
• Pile height determined by the amount of yarn cut off
• Less time consuming than hand-tying each knot
• Requires a high level of craftsmanship
• Can be made faster than hand-knotted rugs
• Generally less expensive than hand-knotted
• Highly durable and accurate
• Weathers foot traffic for years

KNOT

• Woven by tying knots on the warp strands
• Two predominant types of knots: asymmetrical and symmetrical

Asymmetrical (Persian or Senneh) Knot:

• Used in Iran, India, Turkey, Egypt, and China
• To form, the yarn is wrapped around one warp strand and then passed under the neighboring warp strand and brought back to the surface
• Creates a finer weave  

Symmetrical (Turkish or Ghiorde) Knot:

• Used in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Iran by Turkish and Kurdish tribes

Knot Density:

• Refers to the number of knots per square inch or square decimeter in a handmade rug
• Measured in the imperial system in square inches and in the metric system in square decimeters
• KPSI is sometimes used to indicate value
• Higher the number of knots per square inch, the higher the quality, and price

DYES/DYEING

• Process of changing the natural color of materials such as wool, silk, and cotton
• Two types of dyes: natural dyes and synthetic dyes

Natural Dyes:

• Natural dyes only used until the late 19th century
• Include plant dyes, animal dyes, and mineral dyes
• Plant dyes come from roots, flowers, leaves, fruit, and the bark of plants
• Woad, a plant from the mustard and indigo family, is used for blue dye
• Yellow is produced from saffron, safflower, sumac, turmeric, onionskin, rhubarb, weld, and rustic
• Madder, Redwood, and Brazilwood has been used since ancient times for reds
• Browns and blacks come from catechu dye, oak bark, oak galls, acorn husks, tea, and walnut husks
• Henna is used for orange
• For green, indigo that is over-dyed with any variety of a yellow dye is used
• Mineral dyes come from ocher (yellow, brown, red), limestone or lime (white), manganese (black), cinnabar and lead oxide (red), azurite and lapis lazuli (blue), and malachite (green)

Synthetic Dyes:

• Mid-nineteenth century, when demand for handmade rugs increased in the West, production increased in the East
• Need for easy-to-use and less expensive dyes with a wider range of colors caused the development of synthetic dyes in Europe
• Synthetic dyes imported to Persia (Iran), Anatolia (Turkey) and other Eastern countries
• First synthetic dye, Fuchsine (a magenta aniline), was developed in the 1850s
• Other synthetic aniline dyes followed, later banned by the Persian king
• Persian weavers discontinued the use of synthetic dyes until the modern synthetic chrome dyes developed between World Wars I and II
• Chrome dyes are colorfast, retain their intensity and are produced in a variety of attractive colors and shades
• Mostly chrome synthetic dyes are used for coloring weaving yarns
• Natural dyes are used in places where they are easily obtainable