Tanavolia started his examination of Afshar designs with tree carpets, pointing out that the design may have been copied from Kerman carpets or tiles. The tree design was very popular, and Parviz showed examples of its use in housing and even in a coffin. Some of the other popular designs were drawn from more distant sources, including medallion carpets with a possible Northwestern Iranian origin, Turkmen-influenced designs, and the 'cabbage' or European rose design. All the women weave either flatweave or pile pieces from memory - no cartoons. The structure of Afshar weaving similarly shows variety.
Most pieces use semi-depressed warps, symmetrical knotting, and double wefting.
Other pieces are single-wefted, and some also use a special knot that is neither the standard symmetric nor asymmetric knot. There are pieces with warp and weft of either wool or cotton. In fact, some of the oldest examples have cotton foundations. The presence of other neighboring groups and intermarriage complicates the structural analysis, since these adjacent or intermixed groups make different products, with much denser weave, heavily depressed warps, and thicker, greasier wool. The Afshar do all their weaving on horizontal looms.