Oriental Rugs are woven by hand on looms. A loom is a frame that may be kept either vertically, called vertical loom, or horizontally, called horizontal loom.

The warp threads are the foundation threads wrapped around the loom. These run along the length of the rug, usually exposed as fringes at the ends and finished along the sides in special ways to form the edges.

The weft is the thread inserted along the width of the loom, perpendicular to the weft, and after every row of knots to hold them in place.

The pile, also called the knot, creates the pattern of the rug. There are two types of pile knots- symmetric and asymmetric knots. The symmetrical knots can be tied to open right or open left, giving the pile an inclination in right or left direction. Knot density is the measure of knots per unit area of a rug. Knots are counted vertically and horizontally within the given area along the back of the rug. Knot density is affected by many factors like the size of warp, weft and pile threads, the presence or absence of warp depression and how tightly the weaver temps each row of knots.

The weaver may use a cartoon, a design drawn in colors to scale on a grid paper with each square representing a knot, as a guide for weaving.

It is a color variation or a stripe of slightly different hue across the body of a rug, called abrash, often results from a slight color difference in the dye lots used. It is regarded as a positive rather than a negative feature, if the color change is not too sharp or distinct. In fact, many large rugs made by sophisticated weavers and dyers have abrash deliberately inserted into the design of the rug.