All About Carpets & Rugs

How Rugs are Made

Types of Rug Knots

The so-called knots that make up a pile carpet are not actually knots, but loops, wrapped around pairs of adjacent warps. They may be wrapped in several configurations. In all cases they consist of the knot collar – the portion that literally wrap around the warps – and the ends that actually constitute the pile. Symmetrical knots, also known as Ghiordes or Turkish knots, have both ends of the yarn coming up together between two warps, with the knot collar wrapping around two warps. Asymmetrical knots, also known as Senneh or Persian knots, have the ends coming up singly between each pair of warps with a knot collar around every other warp. Jufti knots may be symmetrical or asymmetrical, but they utilize these configurations around pairs of warps rather than single warps, making the pile less dense and quicker to produce. Spanish knots are wrapped symmetrically around every other single warp in an actual knot, the only rug knot that truly merits the term. 

                         Ghiordes (Turkish) Knot                  Senneh (Persian) Knot

Knots Per Square Inch (KPI)

The density or fineness of a pile rug is measured by multiplying the vertical knot count by the horizontal knot count within a given area measurement, either square inches or square decimeters. Anything up to around seventy to eighty knots per square inch is considered coarse. As the number approaches 100 or exceeds it, the count enters the medium range. As one begins to approach 200 knots per square inch, the weave is considered fine. Finely woven rugs may have as many as three or four hundred knots per square inch, but such a count is exceptionally fine. To some extent the knot count depends on the size of the knots and the warps, i.e. the thickness and horizontal spacing of the yarns. But it also reflects how tightly the rows of knots and wefts are compacted vertically. 

Fine Weave vs Coarse Weave

Many people assume that a finer rug with many more smaller knots is a better rug, and that a coarser rug, one with fewer larger knots, is inferior in quality. But this standard is misleading. Intricate designs, small in scale with many sinuous curves are much more effectively rendered in a fine technique, and to be sure, such a fine technique was developed to facilitate the production of intricate, finely detailed designs. But when one is making a rug that relies on large-scale, bold designs with angular contours and large swaths of color rather than linear detail, there is no need to resort to a fine technique with a high knot count. Rugs with such designs are always woven with a coarse or low knot count, and rightly so. Fineness of weave must be coordinated with fineness of design, just as bold design require large-scale weave. What matters more is the density. Whatever the size of the knots, if they are closely compacted vertically and horizontally, the weave will be denser and therefore more durable. Durability deserves to be privileged, but fineness in and of itself as a value is subjective. Some of the most prized rugs – Herizes, Bakshaishes, Sultanabads, or Kazaks, have a relatively low knot count that is appropriate to their large scale design. The term coarse would be best set aside in favor of terms like robust or large-scale.