A good overview of the hand knotting process.
When you purchase a hand knotted rug you are buying a work of hand made art – many times a unique one-of-a-kind piece of art. The process of hand knotting rugs goes back a few thousand years. The oldest rug in the world is the “Pazyryk” carpet, which dates to the 5th century BCE.
The weaving labor alone is quite impressive. Then take into account the skills of the wool dyer and the rug designer, even the wool itself, especially if it is from the underbelly of the sheep (the finest quality wool).
Our hand made rug are made entirely by hand. It starts with a design drawn on graph paper, called a “cartoon”. Then the weavers take the design and begin the process of making the rug, one knot at a time. Each color of yarn is chosen according to the graphed design and then knotted onto the ‘warp’. A set of vertical strings, or “warp” is attached to a loom. Then wool is hand-knotted onto the warp strings to form the “weft” of the rug. At no point are machines used.
But how to detect quality in handmade rugs?
Depending on the type of knots made, the size of the wool strands, and how tightly the knots are tied and pounded down, this will determine the density and level of quality of a rug. For fine “oriental” rugs a high knot count indicates a superior quality rug. Quality of wool, design, place of origin are just a few of the additional things to consider.