Knotting Technique

The genuine Hereke carpets are created by an unique method of construction of the looms. The arrangement of the warps (the vertical threads) in the loom differs from all other techniques worldwide.

Hereke Carpets are always knotted with the durable double Turkish knot.

Double Turkish (Gordes) knot
(© Dania Calderin)

After a line is finished, the knots of a genuine Hereke Carpet are strong scrunched using an iron comb. This step brings all knots in the right order and increases the strongness and density of the carpet. Following is feeded a “weft” – the horizontal thread – through the warps. In this way occurs a consolidation above the knotted area. Moving the loom above now, the rear warps move forward. Now the secound weft is brought in the zigzag through the both tears of warps. The consideration is taken backword and the both horizontal lines are beaten down with the iron comb. The ends of the double knots, which now are forming the pile, after that are trimed with special scissors by hand. This process is repeated every time after finishing a line of knots. This procedure grants the enormous durability of the genuine Hereke silken Carpets. Even a cat is not able to cut these compact knots with their claws.

The pile of Hereke Carpets and especially of the Hereke silken Carpets is always very low, because it has not to hide spaces between the knots. That leads beside of the other above mentioned reasons to the very clear displayed patterns, which are alike well seen from everyone point of view.

Genuine Hereke silken Carpets are always knotted by hand using the durable Double Turkish knot and have a knot density of at least 1,000,000 knots per square meter. Higher knot densities with up to 4,000,000 knots per square meter and even more are possible. The enormous complexity of the designs and colours as well as the highest knot densities determine the long producing time of the genuine Hereke Carpets. A very skilled and master knotter woman is not able to knot more than 3,000 knots per day knotting a Hereke silken Carpet with a density of 1,000,000 knots per square meter – and it is depending on the number of the used colours.

Single Persion (Senneh) knot
(© Dania Calderin)