Afghan tribal rugs use two techniques to create “halftones”. The techniques are “checkered” knots and “marling”. Marled and checked colors function particularly well in landscape backgrounds.

CHECKERED COLORS
When individual knots alternate between colors (both vertically and horizontally) the result is a checkered color, like these examples:


^ Rug #1065 ^

^ Rug #840 ^

^ Rug #355 ^

MARLED COLORS
Marled is two colors spun into one thread then woven into a carpet. It is more irregular and “blurry” than checkered colors.



(verso) ^ Rug #779 ^


^ Rug #1484 ^

^ Rug # 1454 ^

^ Rug #41 ^

^ Rug #49 ^

^ Rug #55 ^