Dealing with White Knots

Four Ways To Deal With White Knots

• 1. The first option is just to leave them alone and appreciate them as a natural part of the rug.
• 2. 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.
• 3. Sometimes it’s possible to clip the ends of the knot strands lower than the surrounding pile, making them disappear.
• 4. It’s also 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 very low, this is common today and 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 cleaned rug to seem to have more white knots than it did when it was brought to the cleaning facility.