Many rug owners, and actually quite a few cleaners,
are unaware that many rugs marked 100% wool on the label
actually have quite a bit of cotton in them.
While the face yarns are 100% wool, the foundation of the rug
is usually made of cotton.
All the white strands on this loom are cotton,
and you can see the blue wool face yarn being
tied around these strands.
In addition to the cotton warps that
run lengthwise along a rug, there
are cotton weft yarns that run side to side.
Weavers don't have an endless spool of cotton yarn to use,
so as the rug is being woven, when the weavers
come to the end of a strand of cotton,
they simply tie a new one on and keep weaving.
If a yarn happens to break during the weaving process,
the two ends are tied together and the weaving continues.
These knots, called foundation fiber knots or white knots
for short, are found in every hand-woven rug.
These knots are not damage.
They are a normal part of the weaving process.
They're usually white but will be
the same color as the foundation of the rug, whatever that is.
There may be a few of them or many of them,
but they're always there, and many times they
can be seen on the rug.
There are four ways to deal with white knots.
The first is just to leave them alone and appreciate them
as a natural part of the rug.
If the weave of the rug is loose enough,
sometimes these knots can be pushed
to the back side of the rug.
This has to be done carefully to avoid making a hole in the rug.
Sometimes it's possible to clip the ends of the knot strands
lower than the surrounding pile, making them disappear.
And it's fairly common to apply a dye or an ink to the knots
to make them blend into the rest of the rug.
There are two ways that white knots can become more visible,
age and a really good washing.
With age, what happens is that the wool pile begins
to wear from foot traffic, and the white knots
that used to be shorter than the wool pile can now be seen.
Many rugs are sheared with a very low nap.
This is common today, and this can
make the white knots more visible even
in a relatively new rug.
Dirt causes the cotton to become dull and less noticeable.
Washing cleans the cotton and also washes away
any ink that may have been applied to reduce
the appearance of white knots.
This may cause a newly clean rug to seem
to have more white knots than it did when it was brought
to the cleaning facility.
So the important things to know are, first,
white knots are present in every handmade rug.
And, after washing, the white knots are clean
and any ink that may have covered them up is washed out,
so they may be more visible after a wash.
If you have any questions about white knots
or anything else about your rugs,
please give us a call and we'll be happy to help.
And please let us know if you like this video.