Repairing

[Phil Bell]

I would be interested to hear views on repairing rugs. I repair my rugs using appletons tapestry wools. I often dye, split and respin warp threads to get the right dimensions, tightness and colour as most wool is too loosely spun for warp material. The warp wool and cotton is basically anything I can find.

Appletons wool is too dull and fuzzy sometimes, the better the rug the duller tapestry wool looks on it. Does anyone have any ideas about sourcing good quality wool with the right colours.

Also I am plagued by the worry of when to repair and when to leave. You have already seen some of my rugs on the show and tell so you will know my house is no museum and most of my rugs dont have great age or special interest although I do have a fine 19th Century Jaf Kurd rug which I am working on now. Should I be repairing this? I am no master restorer but my view is that my repair will be better than the darned hole (and I dont mean darned in the mild profanity sense).
It bothers me to see selvedges leeching knots into the living room so I often do basic damage limitation repairs if I am using the rugs and in general my rugs are on the floor and in use. I think that's a good way of keeping moth at bay. They are in the light and hoovered and inspected regularly that way.

My last problem is how I can get more floorspace. I think a Mezzanine may work as I have an Edwardian house (1905) with high ceilings. It pleases me to know the rugs are of roughly the same age as does my walk to the local post box which is also from the Edwardian period.
Maybe I do live in a museum after all.

Phil

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi Phil,

If you haven't already got it, I wouldn't start until after reading Peter Stone's book on rug repair.

ISBN-10: 0500515212
ISBN-13: 978-0500515211

Cheers
Chuck

[Rich Larkin]

Hi Phil,

I can't add much, but I have a question. How do you manage to insert repair warps in the existing fabric? I have punctured myself in one way or another too many times. (Once is too many. ) BTW, I have obtained repair warps by unstringing fragments. Typically, South Persian or Caucasian.

I have Peter Stone's book, but I guess I haven't followed it. Too stubborn, maybe.

For the record, most of the yarns I have used came from Chatalbash in New York. My main issue was color matching. I suspect you are much more conscientious than I.

Rich

[Phil Bell]

Rich/Chuck,

Yes I used to own the Peter Stone book. A collector bought it for me with the intention of me working for him many years ago. He had a wonderful collection and that is where my love of tribal rugs started. I have since lost the book in the course of a dozen house moves but I remember the principles.

I wax my warps before threading under knot loops and wefts, tie a knot and then reinsert before reaching the hole. Once the hole is crossed I loop around and reinsert under the next knot loop, rinse and repeat as they say.

There is always a danger of breaking the knot loops or wefts, which is why I sometimes reduce the size of the warp and wax it well. I use pliers to pull the needle through while holding my finger over the knot loops to lessen the chance of breakage. That is the critical point and one must assume that the needle may suddenly come out with some force so the exit path should be free. I have learnt this from painful experience.

I don't pretend to be good at this by the way, I am only ok. That is why I wonder if I should be working on older pieces.

Phil

[Carl Gray]

Hello fellow rug enthusiasts, having not been able to visit a barber for 3 months I do have a wobbly fringe, however, it is another type of wobbly fringe that I would like to concentrate on here! I have what I believe is an Afghan Prayer rug where end wefts are coming adrift. I don't think that the rug is anything special but I like it, especially the flatweave end section using red wefts.





The damage is not in a straight line which doesn't bother me but most fixing methods seem to like. So, I would like to secure the wefts to stabilise the flatweave ends in a visually unobtrusive way that is reversible & allows the piece to be washed & used as a floor covering. I would prefer not to remove any of the original material but suspect that I may have to pull away the very loose & broken wefts?

I have the Peter Stone Oriental Rug Repair book which, on page 168, suggests whipstitch (over or under pile), buttonhole stitch, Antwerp edge stitch and chain stitch.

Does anybody have any practical experience of doing this type of repair & if so can they offer any guidance and/or alternative suggestions?

Thank you so much, Carl

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi Carl,

Can you spell: t e d i o u s ?

By the time you are done trying to tease loose wefts back into place and see that their thickness is no longer consistent and that there are broken bits everywhere, you'll begin to realize that the nursery rhyme about putting things back together again makes a good point.

Having done this twice now, with no plan for a third session, I would recommend setting your line of defense at the outer boundary of the red wefts and letting everything outside of the run its natural course.

My sense is that it is best to set a protective line of stitches in a competent section of the foundation. Otherwise the stitch loops can become highly variable in width, and when tensioned up, give a wrinkled appearance that was not in the original restoration plan. And if not tensioned up, then the open section is so long that stuff catches on it and the thread breaks and you're back to square one.

Plus, you will probably, vastly, underestimate the length of thread required to cross the rug.

If you have a sewing machine available consider using it for the protective stitching in the competent kilim region and use the rest of your availlable time to read, bake bread, or brew beer, or garden.

Regards
Chuck

[Dinie Gootjes]

Hi Carl,

I agree with Chuck that trying to get the wefts back where they belong is virtually impossible, as you cannot get the tension back. As he says, take the lower part of the red wefts, and secure that all along the top and bottom. It is monotonous work, but doable. Years ago my husband spent many evenings just going over our rugs, and securing both ends. We once bought a rug that had been secured using a sewing machine. I am sure it is a whole lot faster, but to me it somehow just looks 'wrong' on a hand woven rug.

[Carl Gray]

Hello Chuck and Dinie, thank you for your thoughts.

I think I'll go along with your suggestion and remove wefts in the kilim section back to the red yarn and secure the end one, probably using a similar method to that suggested by Robert Mann in a post on the Oriental Rug Repair Facebook group, also similar to warp replacement, where thread is passed under a few knot nodes from the back of the rug and over the end weft passing back under the adjacent warp knot nodes. I am guessing the at the end of one circuit thread follows the weft passing 4 or so warps before the process is repeated. Providing the right colour thread is used I think it might be almost invisible. I am also guessing that thread much thinner than the warp material, but sufficiently strong, can be used as it just needs to hold back the wefts... this should also make it much easier and, hopefully, quicker to do the job.

I might take a few pictures & post them back on this thread but don't hold your breath as it's quite far down on my list of things to do!

Thank you again and if you have any further thoughts I would be interested to read these.

Carl

[Chuck Wagner]

Hi Carl,

I forgot to mention this; you probably already know, but just in case...

Select threads/yarns made with similar natural materials used in the piecce being repaired.

100% Polyester or nylon, or blends with cotton or wool, can cut the natural wool and cotton in the rug.

REgards
Chuck

[Carl Gray]

Hello Chuck, thank you for your last tip. If the synthetic content is 20% (it's a very good colour match) should I still avoid using it? I have spent quite a bit of time trying to source the right colour, 100% natural, but am struggling.
Regards, Carl