1- TWIST
This style of carpet has a prominent spiral shape. Imagine one straight yarn between your thumb and index finger and twisted six or seven times and you'll get the idea. Manufacturers use a sophisticated heat method to twist the yarn into its permanent shape. Fibers can have up to seven twists per yarn. The more twists the better. The end-result-a rustic knotted look, is very fashionable today.

2 - FIBER TYPE
Frieze carpets are usually made with high quality nylon yarn. Nylon is one of the most widely used fiber type for residential wall to wall carpets. Most of the carpets I recommend are made of Dupont Stainmaster fibers. Dupont makes the fibers; the carpet mill buys it and then produces the carpet. Dupont has a variety of sub-brands in its Stainmaster Collection, but stay with the top quality lines such as Tactesse, Masterlife, Xtralife and Grand Luxura. There are differences between these yarns - but that's another subject.

3 - DENSITY
It's interesting that many people use the density of the carpet as their primary gauge of quality. When I refer to density I'm talking about the number of stitches per inch used to tuft the carpet. Shoppers often identify density by turning over the corner of the carpet. They look at it and say, "Yep, there's a lot of carpet here - it must be good." Just as you can find yourself too full from that turkey dinner on thanksgiving, carpeting can be too dense. The denser a carpet, the harder it feels because the fibers are compacted.