I’ve been getting a few questions about rug repair, and my mother Kate and I recently spoke at the San Diego Weavers Guild meeting speaking specifically to rug repairs and our philosophies on them.

Here’s a simple little rug repair of field wear. Not reweaving, but selective embroidery stitching (to protect the original foundation fibers) and a little dye work to blend it in.

Field wear in an older Hamadan rug.

Tada! The Hamadan gets a facelift!

Several years ago we had a few sold-out hands-on rug repair clinics to train the basics of rug maintenance and specialty repairs. Not reweaving and reknotting rugs, but the most requested repairs: ends, sides, and field wear work (including patches).

After our presentation at this workshop we wondered – is it time to have some more Rug Repair Workshops?

So – if you are interested, let me know by posting down below in the COMMENTS. If there is enough interest then we will work together a curriculum, set some dates at our rug facility in San Diego, and let you know how to register.

Enjoy your weekend!

- Lisa

Fringe tape used to hold the fringe in place.

Yep – it’s tape. Tape used to hold the fringe tassels in place so you don’t have to keep straightening them.

Pros and cons of this. One – it does keep the fringe tassels, especially hefty fringe like on this Karastan rug, in place.

Cons – you can’t reuse the tape, it leaves residue (and a clean spot) where the adhesive was, and if the fringe tassels are weak with age or past bleaching, the tape will easily tear away those tassels.

On a machine woven rug like this one (you can see the machine work on the edges, and that this fringe is clearly added on after the fact) – torn away tassels are not a big deal. In fact, on this rug you can pull off the fringe entirely with your hands (no scissors required).

But on a hand woven rug – torn away tassels will lead to the rug unraveling and losing its value. This will need to be repaired quickly when this happens. Read about getting rug ends repaired right on this prior post.

So, if you HATE your fringe – do NOT cut the tassels off of an oriental rug. Just say no.

But, no worries, because you can hide the fringe. 

The poor-boy route is to simply use masking tape and tape the tassels under the rug. I choose masking tape because it has the least amount of adhesive, so you do not create a huge mess to clean up versus using packing tape or duct tape.

It’s not the ideal choice, but it’s an option that is much better than cutting off the tassels.

The other option is to hide the fringe professionally, with something that does not damage the tassels with adhesive, and keeps them clean in case you decide you suddenly LOVE fringe again.

We use at our rug shop a burlap material to do this. We sew it by hand at the base of the rug, and fold the tassels underneath the rug safely. Take a look on this Tibetan woven rug:

Customer wants the white fringe hidden from view.

Ready to fold the tassels under the rug, and sew to secure.

Abracadabra! The fringe has VANISHED!

Rug friends don’t let friends cut their rug fringe off… ever. Spread the word!

- Lisa

Some rug owners LOVE it… most rug cleaners HATE it. Why all the drama?

Well, it starts with the fact that when the rug is brand new, it tends to have the bright white, immaculate cotton fringe. It just looks so… NEW.

When rug owners send their rugs off for a professional cleaning, the fringe tassels are usually gray and dirty, and they want them that brand new white again.

But that white is just not natural. And it never was. Just like those Hollywood smiles you see (despite their daily coffee intake) – those pearly whites just don’t happen naturally. They are enhanced, with hydrogen peroxide and other bleaching agents.

That fantastic white fringe is also “enhanced” – and as you know when you repeatedly use chlorine bleach on cotton t-shirts, it will yellow, and it will tear and become brittle. And with fringe this means, the tassels simply begin to break and tear off from foot traffic or your vacuum cleaner – like this:

Repeatedly bleached fringe will begin to tear off.

The use of bleaching agents, or hydrogen peroxide, is a common mistake made by both unskilled cleaners and rug owners to try to “clean up” the look of fringe.

Unfortunately bleach is not a cleaning agent. You need to use actual cleaning solutions and some good old elbow grease to remove soil from fringe. Most don’t have the patience to do it correctly, so they are looking for the quick fix - which is why they grab the bleach.

But think about it… if you had heavily soiled shoelaces (also cotton), and you threw it in your washing machine with hot water and a lot of bleach – how would they turn out?

I’ll give you a hint… TERRIBLE.

To get them clean you need to soak them, scrub them, use some detergent to get them looking decent. And getting them to look like brand new again, when they have been beat up for years? That’s a tough job for anyone.

That is the state that many rugs left without a cleaning for longer than a few years gets to, with VERY dirty fringe. And the owners expect a miracle. This is why many rug cleaners hate fringe. And for the less experienced of them, they may grab that bleach to try to create a shortcut to a great look.

However, many do not realize that the bleaching of the fringe done before the rug was even sold, by the manufacturer, can sometimes create deterioration of those cotton fringes that can quickly worsen with future attempts to “whiten” them.

One country notorious for aggressive whitening of fringe is China – you may recognize their distinctive fringe type here (every country finishes their fringe off in a particular way):

Chinese rugs tend to develop yellowed and weak fringe tassels over time.

I personally am not very fond of fringe, especially long fringe tassels. Sometimes I think it would be nice to just get some scissors and cut those strands clean off… but then I have to stop myself.

You see the fringe tassels are actually the warp foundation fibers of a hand-woven rug. This means cutting them off is a huge NO-NO, because the rug will unravel.

Fringe tassels are the foundation fibers of a woven rug.

The better option is to hide the fringe behind the rug. To either use masking tape to hold it underneath the rug (masking leave little adhesive on the cotton), or to use a strip of material to hold the tassels under the rug and cover them up so they stay in good shape.

Hiding the fringe also means they do not have to be continually bleached to make WHITE again, and then they don’t break off and risk the rug knots pulling away and letting the rug unravel.

Hand-woven rugs made well should last several lifetimes. They should outlive us, and our kids, and our grandkids.

Let’s help make that happen by keeping the bleach away from them.

- Lisa