Client approached us to restore her floral Cross stitch rug made by her mum in the early 80`s. She requested to restore the worn parts of the rug and replace the tassels. We agreed to add heavy- duty cotton lining and anti-slip strips as client insists on keep using the rug on the floor.
We started the cleaning process by vacuum the piece first. After the initial vacuum to remove the loose dirt and debris the rug was washed. As it never been washed the rug was washed several times to lift the dirt. We handwashed in a large tub in lukewarm water and detergent used for wool. The water after first two washes resembled dirty puddle water. We rinsed it and gave it longer soak in warm water with the detergent. During the wash we noticed that some the wool thread become loose, what uncovered the stitched areas even more damaged. We left dry flat for almost a week. After the drying we colour matched the wool and started the process of restoration.
As first step during the restoration we removed the tassels on both ends and kept small sample for the length. After we removed the tassels, we opened the folded seams, and it showed us more damaged corners. At some places the canvas base was ripped, or it was falling apart. We had to rewove canvas into these areas. As we started restitching the areas, we had to do damage control on thread in the damaged areas as the thread on some of the areas become more fragile and it was falling apart when we tried to catch under the new stitching.
At the same time, we had retied the original knots to remove the bulky effect and prevent for further damage.
We attached the heavy-duty cotton lining to ease the pressure on the under threads and the anti-slip strips. At last, we retied the tassels and trimmed them into one length.
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Photography by Catherine East
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