Oh the world of rugs! It is a deep rabbit hole and it can be pretty confusing, I know. In this video, we’re going to talk about just three types of rugs that are pretty commonly seen out there when you’re doing your shopping. We’re going to talk about the difference between a machine-loomed rug, a hand-tufted rug, and a hand-knotted rug.

So, let’s talk about the three key types of rugs that you’re seeing when you’re out there doing shopping for your project. Now, face facts there are even more rug types that I’m going to cover in this video. This video we’re talking about machine-loomed, hand-tufted, hand-knotted but there are more types. There is flat-wovens sometimes called flat weaves. There are hooked rugs. There are braided rugs to name a few. But most commonly when you’re out there shopping you’ve seen a lot of the following three rugs. So, let’s dive in.

1. Machine-Loomed Rugs

Sometimes it called machine-made, sometimes it called machine-loomed. The bottomline is a machine is doing all the heavy lifting. Machine-loomed rugs can be in a solid, they can be a texture, or they can be in a pattern. What’s important about machine-loomed rugs is that they will always land at the lowest cost price.

The thing that will determine price in any rug manufacturing type or fabrication type is also the fiber it’s made of. Lowest cost manufacturing process like machine-loomed will always be at the starter level of pricing but if you do machine loomed-rug in a nylon instead of a wool, nylon is lower cost than wool.

So, you see how the fiber something’s made of also effects the price, not just the manufacturing process. So, machine-loomed rug made on the machine, made fast, made quickly, low skilled labor, boom! They’re gonna land at the lower cost option in most cases.

So here the second type of rug.

2. Hand-Tufted Rugs

Here’s an example, it’s nice, plush, and full-looking. This happens to be a pattern, happens to be in a color palette. It can be any color palette, it can be a solid, it can be in a texture, it can be in a pattern like you see. What makes something hand-tufted is the manufacturing process so, the fabrication process.

Unlike the machine-loomed, hand-tufted rugs are made by hand by skilled crafts person using something called the “tufting gun” and with the tufting gun the yarn is pierced right through very quickly in an interesting hand motion, is pierced right through the canvass and that is done repetitively working across a pattern that has been printed on the rug canvass.

It is a lot more time consuming and labor intensive to make a hand-tufted than a machine-made rug. That’s why hand-tufted rugs are more costly in most cases than a machine-made rug, made of the same fiber if you’re doing it and apples to apples comparison.

The thing with hand tufted rug that is wonderful, I think, is that it starts to get you into a more bespoke or a higher end quality product at the lower price than you would if you when into the top tier, which is hand-knotted. But, as I said earlier, with hand-tufted rugs as well as machine-made rugs it’s the fiber that will also determine cost. Is your hand-tufted made up of a nylon or is it made up of wool? Nylon less expensive than wool.

So, if you’re thinking about price point, machine-made starts at the bottom rung for price. Mid-tier rung would be your hand-tufted. So, let’s go to in hand-knotted.

Hand- knotted is fun and big conversation, let’s do it.

3. Hand-knotted Rugs

Here’s an example of a hand-knotted rug. Really expert eyeballs can look at the back of the rug and be able to tell exactly how many knots per square inch are on that rug. So, let’s back up with hand-knotted rugs, you have one craft person working across a huge loom and they are literally tied off individual knots. All the way across the loom, left to right, right to left, just working their way across.

So, what you need to know about cost is that the knots per square inch vary. So, if you buy a rug that is 60 knots per square inch, meaning per square inch, 60 knots were individually tied off, that 60-knot rug will be lower cost than something than was a hundred and sixty knots per square inch. So, the amount of knots per square inch in a hand-knotted rug will affect the price but also it effects how delineated the pattern is, how plush and thick the rugs feels well.

But, with any of the rug type we’ve talked about hand-knotted, hand-tufted or machine-loomed, you have to consider the fabrication process. The faster the fabrication process, the lower the cost on that process and the fiber is made of also affects your total costs.

So, happy shopping on those rugs, do it with great joy and now with great knowledge.