(Click to Enlarge)

To spare your eyesight, I have trascribed the text here (to the best of my ability to decipher it):

Genuine Peking Rug

Made by one of the leading rug artists of China whose insignia appears on the right-hand lower corner of the rug. This is an allegorical creation by the artist of a group of statuary presented to the Temple of Xwo Yen in the reign of Kwah Ling.

The Fairy Rug

Showing the eight immortals of China. In the center seated on the sacred swan is Lao Tze, founder of the Taoist religion. On either side is an attendant. The other eight are the good people each of whom carries a magic charm in hand by which he is rendered invisible as he goes around the world doing good. Leading from left to right the figures are as follows:

1^st Goddess of the Harvest

2^nd God of Prosperity

3^rd God of Learning and Light

4^th God of Poetry

5^th Animal Attendant Representing Faithfulness

6^th The Venerable Lao Tze

7^th Woman the Help Mate of Man

8^th God of Sculpture and Art

9^th God of Music

10^th God of Joy

11^th Goddess of Fortune

The clouds represent infinitude of space and eternity

It is nice for us to finally have an explanation, as far as the identities of these characters. When similar rugs come in in the future, we will have this on file to give to the rug owners.

Here are clickable thumbnail pictures of each of the characters:

This is a runner we have in here at the moment, with a gaping hole in the field. Patching would be problematic, in that we would need a fragment of a similar rug to pull a patch from... matching the color and texture of that background color would be next to impossible.

And restoring it would not be cost effective. The amount of money that would be needed to do a reweave could easily be spent on simply buying a new rug, since this rug is a contemporary piece. It is hand-woven, true, but it certainly isn't an investment piece. The value of this type of rug rests in its appearance more than anything - and right now, it has a large hole in it!

But it also has a repeating pattern, which makes it a perfect candidate for cutting down. 

This idea is to remove a section and reattach it, matching the pattern as closely as possible, effectively making a shorter version of the same rug.

Here is a shot from the back, which gives an approximate idea of what the results will be. Instead of simply cutting it straight across and reattaching it, it helps visually to cut the borders in different places. This will help minimize drawing the eye to the place where the cut was made.

The center piece is removed, then cuts are plotted out in a staggered pattern for the borders.

Once the cuts are made, and the edges secured properly, the halves are reattached like a puzzle. Every attempt is made to match the design up perfectly; however, often small weaving quirks and variations prevent a perfect match. In this case, the two medallions were each slightly different widths. 

The rug is secured, strong and ready for use. It is about 18 inches shorter, but the big, ragged hole is gone. If you know to look for it, the seam is visible (especially from the back), but people passing by will never know the rug used to be longer!

This strategy won't work in every case, but for some damaged rugs, it is definitely a viable option. 

Behold, another victim in the age-old struggle between puppies and hooked rugs!

One tug in the right place will start the rug unraveling. Even though dogs tend to have brief attention spans by nature, it doesn’t take too long before substantial damage can be done. Thankfully, it usually looks worse than it actually is. The repair itself is pretty straightforward.

Who could stay mad at that face?

If the loose wool is sent in with the rug, this is ideal. It then becomes a matter of properly reattaching the wool. However, if the wool is missing (say, in the puppy's tummy!), then we will try and match the wool as close as possible, from the vast collection we have on hand.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer any sage advice for preventing this sort of damage, aside from keeping your rugs and pets apart (hardly practical). This is just one of those occasional “pet accidents” you’ll have to endure as part of the choice you made to combine your love for pets with your love for rugs.

Good as new!

We’ll be here to help, when it’s needed!

If you live outside the San Diego area, you can ship these rugs to us for repair, if you’d like, or you can drop us a quick email at rugcarecentral@gmail.com and we’ll try to locate a reputable rug repair facility in your area.

Uh oh...

The culprit?

A Potted Plant!

Potted plants may seem like a good idea, and add just the right touch to compliment the décor in your living room, but usually, moisture associated with the upkeep of the plant will find its way from the pot into the rug underneath. Left undisturbed long enough, this will permanently damage the rug. Often, the damage is not discovered until it is way too late to prevent.

Let's say it’s been a year or two, the time has come to get your rug cleaned, and so the furniture is moved out of the way – and there it is… an ugly hole, perhaps smelling of mold.

Usually, the problem area is larger than the hole itself. As you can see in the picture, there is the hole, and then there is the extended, discolored area surrounding the hole that is weak, and won’t “hold” onto any type of repair. All of that weak area needs to be removed. Once the rug has been washed and sanitized, the weakened area is removed and secured. The rug can then be repaired (since leaving a big hole is not normally a very palatable option!).

Options

The hole can be rewoven and restored to its original condition – though this route is time-consuming and costly, and normally only reserved for highly collectible pieces that need restoration in order to maintain their investment value. Normally, we wouldn’t do this type of restoration, but rather refer them to reweaving houses overseas that specialize in the type of rug in need of reweaving.

The more typical route we go with in our shop (and the option that normally makes the most sense for our clients) is to patch the area with a fragment of a similar type of rug.

In the case of a Karastan we repaired recently, reweaving certainly wasn’t a logical choice, so we patched it. There were two problem areas: a large area about 1 foot square, and a smaller area in another corner, about 2 inches by 5 inches.

The weakened area was removed and the perimeter secured.The weakened areas were removed and secured. A piece from a separate Karastan fragment is prepared and secured, shaped to precisely fit into the gap in the rug.

a patch from a different Karastan is prepared for use. 

The weak, rotten area has been trimmed away and the perimeter secured.

Once the fragment is shaped and secured properly, it is secured into the rug itself. No glues are used.

Close-up view of patch seam, from back sideIf you know to look for it, a patch will usually be apparent.The most important thing we focus on is strength. If the patch is strong and secured properly, then the rug is useable again, and does not need to be babied or avoided when walking. Getting the design to match nicely is a plus, but is not the top priority. The design can often be modified with dyes to better blend, but if the color scheme and general look/feel of the patch matches that of the rug, then a person walking into the room and looking at the rug will never know that it has been patched. Upon close examination, a patch is normally noticeable. But the idea is to patch the damaged area in such a way as to not draw the eye, like a big hole would.

Upon entering the room, the patch is practically invisible. But the important thing is it is strong and the rug can be used without fear.This repair is relatively inexpensive, and is effective, making the rug useable again, while at the same time done in such a way that if, in the future, the rug owner wanted to have the area rewoven, it could be easily be done. If the patches were lathered with latex on the backside (as we see some rug repair shops do) then reweaving would be much more difficult, since the latex is impossible to remove.

If you have a potted plant as part of your interior décor, the best defense is to not put it on your rug at all. Place it nearby, or on an elevated stand that allows plenty of air to get between the rug and the underside of the plant. Of course, artificial plants could be considered as well.

 Every handmade rug has something in common – extra “knots” that are not pile.

When a rug loom is set up, the warps are strung up first. Then, a row of knots is tied on, and a weft (or more than one) is added between each row of knots. These wefts serve to hold the rows of pile knots in place.

When the end of a weft is reached, a new one is tied onto it and the weaving continues. Or if the weft breaks, the pieces are tied back together and the weaving continues. Thus, every rug has these knots, where two wefts have been joined together during weaving. Usually, the knots go unseen and unnoticed, for a number of reasons:

• If the foundation is wool, the natural color of the wool makes the knots blend into the pile, making them virtually unnoticeable.
• With cotton-foundation rugs, when the rug is newer, the pile is nice and long, effectively burying the knots, hiding them from view. Cotton wears much more slowly than the wool pile around it. As the years pass, and the rug gets some wear, the wool pile slowly shortens and the white knots start to poke out, becoming visible.
• When a rug is soiled, the cotton knots are dirty, blending into the pile better, making them far less noticeable. When the rug gets a good bath, the cotton knots shine nice and white (like clean cotton is supposed to). The effect can be jarring, if you aren’t expecting it.

For a rug that hasn’t been washed in years, the “appearance” of the white knots after wash can be a cause for concern among some owners who have never had this common phenomenon explained to them. We try to explain it ahead of time, pointing out the “knots” before the wash, letting rug owners know what to expect with their nice, clean rugs. The knots aren't caused by the wash, but rather they've been there all along, and the wash has simply revealed them.

If you look closely at any hand-made rug, you'll see the knots.

Even though it is common, there are some things that can (or shouldn’t!) be done to address the knots.

Some can be trimmed down a bit. Not too close to the foundation, or the knots may come undone, and the rug start to unravel! Remember, the knots are there because foundation threads are tied together.

Sometimes, the white knots can be dyed with permanent dye, using fine-tipped paint brushes. Dyes are hand-mixed to match the color as closely as possible. One must be very careful to *only* touch the cotton and not the surrounding wool pile. If dye gets on the wool, it will dye the wool even darker, making a different version of the same problem – only having dark spots instead of white knots!

If the knots don’t bother you, then given enough time and foot traffic, the knots will blend themselves away again, as they slowly become soiled.

Even rugs with wool foundations will have the knots.

While the design is hardly unique, it certain did intrigue me. Not just the horsemen, but the animals throughout the border. I thought I'd post close-ups of a few of the designs here, just to share. First, a couple of the horsemen from the field...

Hunting with the bow certainly makes sense... not sure how effective hunting with a sword from horseback would be...

And here are a couple shots from the borders...

It's proving difficult to find good articles to link to, as far as pictoral rugs for you to look at if you wanted more info. HERE is a pretty good one. Most other pages are to sites that are selling rugs, and I don't want you to think we're endorsing these other sites by linking to them.

The most common issue when dealing with round/oval rugs is keeping the rounded parts from unraveling. Normally, a round rug needs to be woven on a traditional square loom, like any other rug...

The main problem comes from dealing with the excessive warps and wefts that will need to be removed when the weaving is complete. In some cases, like the large black and gold India rug at the top of this post, the warps and wefts are simply cut off and the perimeter wrapped with a nice, thick wool...

This may seem like a good solution, but usually, it is a manufacturing short cut that will need to be dealt with sooner or later, since the rug was not secured at all before the edge was wrapped. Basically, when this round rug came off the loom and the loose foundation cords cut off, it looked something like this...

There is nothing keeping those wool knots from sliding right off. Just wrapping the cut edge with wool does nothing. The solution should be to do extensive overcasting with unbreakable thread, then attaching a sidecord around the perimeter, and then wrapping that cord in the dark wool. The end result, as far as appearance, will be very similar... but the rug will be strong and will not unravel.

On a traditional loom, the loom is strung with vertical warps first. During the weaving, as the horizontal wefts are added one at a time (with rows of wool knots between them), the wefts loop around the sidecords and head back in the other direction. This looping of the wefts around the warps means that the sides are secure, and the rug won't unravel. This step is missing in most round rug production.

Look at this rug, which came in recently.

This was a square rug initially, which was then cut into a round rug well after it was alive. However, the perimeter was not secured, but rather just wrapped in that light-blue wool. It is beginning to pull apart as a result. The owner has left it here for us to properly repair, so he can use it without fear.

You can see the loose foundation threads here in this close-up (pardon my thumb), and the fact that it has no sidecord at all. Left undealt-with, the rug will lose a couple rows of knots all the way around. There is simply nothing holding the rug together around the perimeter.

The Right Way

Older Chinese rugs (Nichols, Fetti, etc.) had it down right when it came to round/rounded rugs.

Their solution was to simply add a "base" around the entire rounded edge, thus locking the knots in place. Most handmade rugs have fringes, and most of those fringed ends have a fringe base - which is basically a continuation of the warps/wefts, only without the rows of knots, as in the body of the rug. Adding a few extra wefts at the ends of rugs keeps the knots in place.

As you can see, the rows of knots taper off into a nice, rounded edge, and the "fringe base" follows suit. In this next picture of an oval Chinese rug from the 20s, you can see this illustrated as well.

 Newer scuplted Chinese rugs also tend to have the additional fringe base around the curves, to help the rug hold onto both its shape and its knots, but many other countries do not. If you are in the market for a new or used round rug, take a good look at the way the rounded edges are finished. Ask if the rug has simply been cut off the loom and wrapped, or if it has been properly secured. If you can address the issue before you buy the rug, it can save you an expensive repair in the future.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or email us at rugcarecentral@gmail.com.

Dave Wagner

We had this little handmade mat come in this week which we found interesting. From the front side, the most apparent feature was the fact that the ends are unraveling. Well, we are a rug care facility, so wash and repair needs tend to leap out at us! We could certainly address the unraveling without issue, but when we turned the rug over, we found something more interesting...

From the picture, initially, it may look like one of those "copyright protected" photos you find online, but it isn't a digital watermark on the pic. If you click it to see it enlarged, you'll see that the weaver of this mat has added his/her name on the back of the rug, in a rather unique way. He/She added additional knots that are only visible from the back. Look at this close-up shot.

The knots are actual pile knots, just pointing toward the back. Leslie told me she'd seen it done before on occasion, but in my years in this business, I'd never seen it. So my first thought, of course, was, "I better put this up on the website!"

I thought I'd also take this chance to talk about overcasting. In most cases, we would recommend threading the ends down to the first fully intact weft and secure it so it is uniform across the whole end. But in this case, we did a "overcast as is" approach, to retain as many knots as possible.

Notice the left corner, where more unraveling had happened than elsewhere. If we had taken the whole end down so that it was secured straight across evenly, we would have lost many partial rows of knots. So we cleaned out the knots that were already loose (since packing them back in was not possible), and secured it in a staggered "staircase" type configuration. At this point, the rug will not unravel any further, and kept as many knots as possible.

This is probably the most commonly-needed repair we see in our shop, and likely the repair need you'll eventually see in rugs that you own. If you see that your rug is beginning to unravel, you should consider getting this repair done. As of this writing, we normally charge between $12 to $15 per linear foot, and this repair is guaranteed for the life of the rug if we do it.

If you are not in the southern California area, you could still ship your rug to us, and we can repair it for you, or you could contact us, and we will try and locate a good repair facility in your area. You can email us at rugcarecentral@gmail.com if you have more questions.

Dave Wagner at San Diego Rug Cleaning Co.

We received a 4x6 Turkish rug recently, from another local rug care company (name withheld!), which had some damage to it that surprised the both of us. The rug was being dusted by this other company and got caught up in the machinery they were using to dust it, by a tech that didn't quite understand what he was doing.

 Across one whole end of the rug, there were tears ranging from a couple inches to over a foot long. In their defense, it was only partly a "tech competence" issue. The foundation of the rug was weak to begin with, due to various factors that would bore you to hear about. Nevertheless, the damage was done, and though technically the company is a competitor of ours, we hold to the "do unto others" philosophy of doing business, and agreed to take a shot at repairing the damage so they wouldn't have to replace their client's rug.

Kate dove in and, through a combination of experimentation, common sense and talent, managed to do a terrific job of repairing the damage, as is evidenced in the following "before and after" pictures...

(Click to enlarge)

From standing, the repairs are invisible - you can't tell there had even been damage. You have you get really close and look hard to see the evidence of the repair. We assume the company will be happy with the results when they pick it up this week!

I thought I'd make a "before/after" video as well. (Your speakers are fine - there is no audio in the clip!)

D Wagner

at San Diego Rug Cleaning Co.

And, it is not always practical to have an investment grade silk rug on the floor, being walked on and spilled on.

Silk is a durable fiber, very strong in fact, but sometimes the dyes are not colorfast and so spills can create problems. The dyes may bleed, or in trying to wipe up the spill an owner may distort and damage the fibers.

However, they are a significant investment, and so we have seen for decades now, artificial silk rugs come to market.

These rugs initially were made from mercerized cotton. This is a chemical processing that makes the cotton shiny, and silk-like. You see many of these coming from Turkey as prayer rugs.

They wash up well. They are sturdy.

Wash before and after

They are of course not anywhere as exquisite as real silk rugs from Turkey, but they are a way to get a nice rug with a silk look at a very affordable price.

These are sometimes referred to as Art Silk rugs, or Faux Silk. ("Art" being short for "Artificial".)

Real silk rugs have a very short fiber length, and are very pliable. The more knots per square inch, the more the rug folds like cloth.

Artificial silk rugs tend to be stiffer, with a much lower knot count per square inch, and a longer face fiber length.

If you believe you were sold a silk rug that may not be real silk, if you have a cup of Chlorox you can test it. Chlorox will dissolve silk, but not cotton.  So if you take some tweezers, and pull out a few strands of the rug (you only need a little bit so don’t pull out too much) and drop them into the cup - if they bubble after about 10 minutes then it is silk, and if nothing at all happens, it’s cotton.

Another way is to check is the fringe base. If the fringe base is doubled over twice onto itself, as in this picture, it is artificial silk.

This is because the fringes on an art silk rug are added after the rug has been woven. They are strung in individually, and are usually looped. A genuine silk rug will have a traditional fringe base woven into the rug, as shown in this picture.

The fringes on a genuine silk rug are part of the foundation itself - the warps of the rug - rather than added after the fact, as with Art Silk rugs.

Today’s Rugs To Run From:

Viscose Rugs

Cotton is actually a fairly strong fiber, so mercerized cotton “fake” silk rugs are pretty durable.

But for some reason, perhaps because it’s cheaper, rug manufacturers have been selling “fake” silk rugs that are made of rayon, or also known as viscose.

To make viscose, they take cotton by-products and heavily chemically treat the mixture to make a silk substitute.

The problem is - it is the worst fiber to use in a rug.

Why? Several reasons:

1)  Lack of fiber strength.  A wool strand in lab tests can be bent 10,000 times before it will break (it is the BEST fiber for rugs by far). Silk will last 2,400 times. But viscose - only 70.  This means as it is walked on, brushed, mopped up with spills, the fibers break down and the rug slowly falls apart.  These rugs do not last long.

2)  Lack of dye strength. Rayon/viscose does not hold color well. It can bleed when wet, and fades easily in sunlight. Unlike wool or real silk which can look fantastic after decades (and sometimes centuries), a viscose rug will look worse after just a year.

3)  Bad tendency to yellow. We have had clients spill just water on a rayon rug, and have it look like a pet urine stain. The processed cotton properties have a bad tendency to yellow with moisture, and also yellow with age.

I do not know why they made the decision to make viscose rugs. Though they look nice in the store, they just do not stay that way.  And you certainly cannot use them like a normal rug and expect it to stay looking good.

But, if the price is really cheap, and you are good with buying another one every few years, then maybe that’s a good choice for you.  It does have a shiny look, and if that is what you are after, but you do not want to invest in a real silk rug because you have pets, or a lot of traffic in a certain area, then that might be your best option.

We just want to make sure you know what you are buying, because the sales person may not know the facts.  And if they tell you that viscose rugs are a good quality rug purchase, then you will know that they have no idea what they are talking about.

If viscose it should be CHEAP. If it isn’t, then that is NOT a store you should shop from.

- Lisa