Braided Rugs – What To Watch For

September 30, 2009 — therugchick

I’ve seen braided rugs come in all colors, sizes, and ages. New product from stores like Pier One, and some from the 1930′s with a story from the owner about how their neighborhood tore clothing into strips to create a community rug when she was a child.

These rugs are braided. Fabric strips braided into long braids, and then crafted into a rug like this one:

Braided rug from America

Braided rug from America

Many are very sturdy rugs, but some of the older ones can pose some problems for both rug owners and rug cleaners. Here are a few items to check for:

Rug dye problems. You want to test the dyes of your rug to see if they are not colorfast. If you own the rug and a damp cloth shows dye transfer, then you will want to be careful what type of surface you place the rug on top of as dye may transfer onto other surfaces.  If you are nervous about a vibrant braided rug being on top of light colored wall-to-wall carpeting, then use a pad underneath as a barrier between the rug and the carpeting. (Rugs are meant to be placed on HARD surfaces, so this is only if you have no choice but placing it over a soft flooring.)

If you are a rug cleaner, and the dyes are highly fugitive, then instead of giving the rug a proper wash, you will be forced to lessen the amount of water during the cleaning and treat the rug as you would tricky upholstery and use a tool such as the Drimaster tool to clean, rinse, and immediately extract the cleaning solutions.

Rug braid filler threads. Sometimes the inside of the braids are supported with filler materials to make the braids more stiff. These filler materials, if they are dyed, may create “bleeding” problems when wet. You will want to open up the braids a bit and see of this filler material exists. This is a blurred photo – but this is what the filler material can look like:

Cut braid with filler material inside.

Cut braid with filler material inside.

Broken braids. With especially older braided rugs, the thread holding the braids along side of one another can weaken and break. This ends up making the rug fall apart. If you own the rug, tripping on broken areas can make the problem worse, and if the rug is given a bath, moving the rug around can create more and more broken areas.

Braided rug coming unraveled.

Braided rug coming unraveled.

The problem of broken connecting threads needs to be addressed BEFORE the cleaning process as it will become worse. If the rug is heavily soiled however, hand sewing the braids together will not be possible (it’s unsanitary to the rug repair specialists to be handling and breathing in the contaminants in a heavily soiled rug).

In this case, you can sandwich the rug between two plastic screens, sew these screens to one another to press the rug tightly inside of them, and then soak the rug, scrub, and rinse the rug as that “braided rug sandwich.” Then after complete drying it can be repaired.

When you send a braided rug off for repair, be sure to make sure they use very strong upholstery thread for those connecting threads so that you do not have to have the rug repaired yet again in a few more years.

These are colorful and fun rugs – and the older ones have some great stories attached to them. Just be sure to inspect them very carefully before cleaning so that you do not create any unexpected problems.

- Lisa

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New Oriental Rugs – Protecting Your Investment

September 15, 2009 — therugchick

I use the term “oriental rug” to mean a hand-woven rug (as opposed to an “area rug” which is a machine made rug).

Technically “oriental” refers to “the East” (the Orient) and rugs woven over on the other side of this great planet of ours. Academics use “occidental rug” to refer to those rugs woven in the western hemisphere, such as Navajo rugs.

I know that technically I should distinguish between oriental and occidental – but I don’t. I’ve never used the term occidental with a client, ever. They think I’m saying accidental rug with a pompous “oh” instead of the “ax” – so I keep it simple. Hand woven is “oriental rug” to me – and this is what I see in my head:

Loom from Castle Cleaning in Colorado.

Loom from Castle Cleaning in Colorado.

I see the hand work that has twisted every single knot around those warp threads. I see the sheared wool, the dyeing process, the spinning process, the months (and sometimes years) of creation time.

I see a piece of someone’s life in front of me. A part of someone’s soul in a piece of art now place in your home for you to enjoy.

A hand woven rug makes me smile.

Machine woven rugs? Tufted rugs with material backing? They just have no heart to me. No soul. No love.

I have loved many, many wonderful rugs, brand new and some centuries old. None have been machine made. It’s like really loving GOOD food, and having to go to McDonald’s – there is just no pleasure in a knock off. At least not for me. It’s one of the joys – and curses – of knowing so much about a craft … when you really appreciate the art, you are drawn to the well-made pieces.

And I appreciate those who in a world full of commodity, cheap, machine-made product, will choose to buy a hand crafted rug. I appreciate those who value and buy a REAL rug. (I am still very nice to everyone who buys area rugs also – I just enjoy the hand woven rugs more.)

I received an email today from a peer who received a brand new hand woven rug from a client. She has had the rug a few days, and noticed that a damp cloth makes the red dye transfer to it. The peer was asking me for some advice – here is the rug from Iran:

Wool hand woven rug.

Wool hand woven rug.

With brand new rugs, it is possible that they have a certain amount of “excess dye” in the fibers. This washes away in the first cleaning (some rugs are washed thoroughly before being sold and these do not have this situation).

If the rug is in an area where there may be spills, then they might pose a problem, because the dye may move and migrate to other areas. So this is what I suggested to my peer. Not to wash it fully, but to rinse the tips of the fibers.

Rugs, especially oriental rugs, should be given a bath when cleaned. This is the recommended thorough way of cleaning rugs. This should be done in a rug plant, because thorough dusting, the wash, and complete drying are required. Many rugs have dyes that are not colorfast, so these professionals are trained to stabilize the dyes during the cleaning process.

But with this rug, a bath is not needed. The issue is not soil, but excess dye. If you are a professional rug cleaner, these are the steps I’d recommend:

1) Use your Drimaster tool. This is the PERFECT tool because you want to be able to rinse the fibers thoroughly and IMMEDIATELY extract without the water moving to other areas and potentially making the red dye move to neighboring areas. (If you do not own a Drimaster tool you can find it on the Hydramaster site.)

2) You can adjust the amount of water flow, and you can see the water through the viewer to see if it is red or simply clear. Make short strokes WITH the grain of the wool fibers several times, and then turn off the water flow and follow up with a dry stroke to pick up any remaining moisture.

(To determine the GRAIN of the fibers, pet the rug as you would your dog. You will know when you are going WITH the grain or AGAINST it – and you always want your tool strokes or brushing strokes to be WITH the grain.)

3) Keep the rug out flat, and dry it quickly. If you use a Dri-Eaz AirPath, it will dry in minutes.  Set it beside the rug rather than over it so as not to leave any impressions from the airmover legs.

4) Take a damp towel to verify that no more dye transfers as before.

It is not unusual to have “excess dye” in the fibers of a new rug. This wool is very thoroughly dyed those beautiful colors, and just as with new sweaters in the laundry, some dye comes off in the first cleaning. (Just as your grandmother used to add vinegar to her wash to help stabilize and protect neighboring fabrics from absorbing this migrated dye – many rug plants use vinegar also as a rug dye stabilizing agent in their facilities. Old world ways in new world operations.)

The reason I like this “surface rinse” of a brand new rug is because it takes away that excess dye (which might give a rug owner problems if there is a spill), but also because even though the rug is “new” it is not necessarily clean. Dust settles in the store, some have people who walk on them in the store, and the shipping and transport from overseas is not necessarily the cleanest experience. The thorough rinse can remove surface contaminants as well as that excess dye.

If you are a proud owner of a brand new wonderfully hand woven rug, and you find a little dye coming off on a damp towel and you are concerned – now you know what to do.  A surface rinse with a new piece of technology that keeps the rug from having to be given a bath just to remove a little bit of extra dye.

Some rugs last for centuries – so they are not a part of our lives; we are a part of theirs. I hope you enjoy your new (or old) woven rug for many years to come.

- Lisa

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Tea and Rugs – A Good Mix?

September 5, 2009 — therugchick

There’s a rug phenomenum out there called “tea-washed.”

It’s not really TEA – but a brown over-dye that is applied to a rug after it’s woven in order to do several things: make it look older, mute the colors to give it a softer look, and also sometimes to HIDE flaws. I wrote about this in the blog That Rugs Lies!

Tea-washed can be called also Henna-washed and Antiqued.

Take a look at this rug, with a light application, but you can see it in the fringe tassels:

The fringe used to be white, as you can see on the tips of the tassels.

The fringe used to be white, as you can see on the tips of the tassels.

The “tea wash” application is applied by dipping the rug, or spraying it over the rug. And as with everything in life, sometimes work is done VERY well with the best grade materials, and sometimes it is done VERY poorly.

The tea wash dye application is not permanent. And it will wash out depending on that quality of application.

Where you see the most visible loss of the over-dye of that brown dye is on the fringe. You begin to see the original white of the tassels peek out.  And in the field of the rug a cleaning can make it a bit more blotchier as the over-dye washes out (and can do so even with the gentlest of cleanings – but if you ever make the wrong choice to steam clean a wool rug in the home, which you should never do of course on any wool rug, you will see that loss of dye even more significantly).

Let’s say though, you give it a gentle proper cleaning – using cool to warm water, a vinegar mixture to stabilize the dyes during cleaning, a mild neutral pH shampoo for the wash, and a thorough rinsing. Let’s say you do everything properly … you will still see a loss of this tea wash.  Not as severe as if the rug were cleaned in the home rather than in a rug cleaning plant – but still, a loss nevertheless.

And sometimes this tea wash application is a cover-up for a problem, such as pre-existing dye bleed in a rug:

Reds in rug have bled and "tea wash" used to hide this to buyers.

Reds in rug have bled and "tea wash" used to hide this to buyers.

If you buy a tea washed rug for the “look” of it, this is fine.  You just need to know if it is a GOOD application of the over-dye process.  A sign of a BAD application would be: 1) very blotchy fringes; 2) brown dye that comes off on to towel during a dye test with hot water; and 3) the worst, if dye comes onto a DRY towel when you wipe the rug – this is known as crocking and means ANY amount of moisture will make that dye leave the rug fibers.

However, if the application seems solid, then you simply need to know that over time this over-dye application will lighten up, and may make the rug appear to be more blotchy over time.  In most cases the difference is only something a trained rug cleaning eye will notice.

So – if you see a rug that has beige or gold or brown fringe – you need to investigate a little closer:

Inspect the rug thoroughly whether you are cleaning or buying the rug.

Inspect the rug thoroughly whether you are cleaning or buying the rug.

If you are BUYING the tea washed rug – test the dyes and closely look at the designs (front and back) for damage the over-dye of brown may be covering up. You want to make sure you are not buying damaged merchandise, or a rug that may release dye onto socks or onto flooring underneath it.

If you are CLEANING the tea washed rug – test the dyes, and also inspect that rug closely front and back for pre-existing damage. You want to let the rug’s owner know that “tea wash” applications are not permanent, and that you will wash gently so to not remove a great deal of the application. (If the rug has had pet accidents – this is the worst thing to happen to a rug in terms of “spills” so they need to know that urine will likely remove this “tea wash” more significantly in those affected areas.)

Many tea wash applications are very attractive looking – just know what you are buying or cleaning – and you will be able to keep the rug looking great for a long time.

- Lisa

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