Area Rugs: Handmade vs Machine-Made

1. Fringe
2. Edge Finishing
3. Back

Before getting into details on these features, let's get a general idea about what constitutes a handmade or a machine-made rug. The handmade rugs are woven or knotted by hand. Every single knot is made by hand. A machine-made rug is made by a machine as the name implies. They are not "knotted" but "woven" into a luck by large machines. They are also called power-loomed rugs. There is another type of rug that is considered a handmade or hand-crafted. These rugs are made using a modified drill gun which inserts the pile into a cloth creating a loop pile. If this rug is sheared, the loop piles turn into a cut pile. The loop pile, if not sheared, is called Hand-Hooked and the cut pile is called "Hand-Tufted". These rugs have handmade look but they cost a lot less because using a gun speeds up the process dramatically. For example a good quality 9 x 12 hand knotted rug would take something between 12 to 16 months while the same size rug in a hand-tufted quality would take one week at the most. These rugs don't have a lot of value to a rug collector or someone who is looking to buy an area rug as an investment, but they do offer champaign taste to those with beer pockets. Handmade rugs are almost always made out of wool and sometimes out of cotton or silk (silk is usually used in highlights of the design). Machine-made rugs are made in wool as well as man-made fibers such as Nylon or Polypropylene (fancy word for Olefin).

Kilim, Dhurrie or flat-weave rugs:: These are essentially the same type of rug. They are pile-less rugs with the yarns woven through the vertical cotton yarns of a loom. They are usually reversible and do not show the wear as much as a pile rug would. These rugs woven by hand in many parts of the world. In most of the world they are called Kilim (Turkish origin word), in India they are called Dhorrie.

How To Tell The Difference Between a Handmade and Machine-Made Rug:

Fringe
If the rug has a fringe, its characteristics usually gives it away if the rug is handmade or not. A simple thing to look for is this: Is the fringe sewn over the rug or was added to the rug as a finishing touch or is it an extension of the rug? If it is sewn over, it is a machine-made. If it is extension of the rug, is handmade.

Edge Finishing
Another easy way to tell the difference is by looking at finishing used on the edges of the rug. If binding or serging is used, the rug is machine-made. Handmade rugs (knotted) are always finished on the edges by hand which looks like serging but you do not see the machine stitch tracks on the back.

Area Rug back tells you how the rug was made.

Back
One of the best ways to tell if an area rug is handmade or not is to look at its back. Inspect the back closely when looking at weaves or knots. In handmade rugs, they are slightly uneven, a sign of imperfection while they look perfectly even in machine-made rugs. Regardless how the rug is made, the more detailed and pronounced the design when looking from the back, the better the quality. It means there are more knots/weaves per square inch, therefore more durable and if it is a handmade, it means it took a long time to make it.
Hand-Tufted or Hand-Hooked rugs (made with gun) have a cloth backing and the edges normally don't have a finishing such as serging or binding.

We hope you enjoyed this article and find it useful. We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Please use our contact page. To learn more about area rugs, see our Area Rugs Blog.

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