Oriental Rug Care

I recieved a gift from my favorite Aunt recently.  She is at the age now (in her 90’s) and she called me over to go threw some things as she will be not living alone any longer.  Among all the heirlooms was something she wanted me to havean old, Oriental Rug I hadn’t seen lately. It was rolled up and hidden away.   Because of my friends at Oriental Rug cleaning company.  I have been learning about the diversity of the different rugs, how they have been woven and for what purpose .  And now I had received a rug from my aunt and she said her parents got from the orient.  All I knew it was dirty, didn’t look like much of anything, but because she insisted on me taking it from the home she was moving from, I agreed and propmtly took it to my friends at Pride Carpet , also owned by my friend and where they have a  cleaning facility along with  Oriental Rug Cleaning.  I would walk around looking at the variety of rugs in the cleaning process, I must say the Chinese Rugs I have seen are esquisit!

So I lug this rug over to the warehouse, (not only Pride Carpet Cleaning and Oriental Rug Care are housed, but also Colonial Floor Care, my friends that had helped my husband and I with our rental rennovation Terrazzo, concrete, and soon to redo the garage…but that is for another day.)  So I bring my rug there, and by golly!  It sure was a Chinese made rug, from the early 1900’s, In the 1920’s and 30’s many rugs in  a vaguely Art Deco style I found out that these rugs were Hand Woven, but  produced for the American market in rug “factories” in Hebel and Shandong provinces. Although rugs were woven by hand,  the workshops were highly organized with, foreign companies controlling all phases of the production.

Many rugs from this period had plain grounds of pearl grey or navy with wide solid-color borders and simple floral spray design elements. hWhich is exactly what this rug looked like.  So I had them hand wash it, and because the fringe was in terrible condition I then replicate the fringe and replace it also.  When I brought the rug home, it was just beautiful. I almost didn’t want to step on it, but it had taken a beating for almost 100 years, as this rug was purchased when my Aunt was a child and her father was stationed around that area and they traveled.  So it had been in the family for almost 80 years.

So getting back to Brussels in Spring and another vacation desationtion for an upcoming vacation.  While talking to the owner, he told me about this carpet they do every year with flowers!  He showed me a quick look at some pictures he had so off I went to start looking into this.  Doing my research on this distenation I found out that this festifull  had been started by the Begonia growers in the area,  Each year the carpet is different depending on the quality and quanity of these amazing blooms!. I could only gasp at the pictures.  Now I wanted to go to there!

Comparing  the actual carpet to the floral carpet.  You can see where the weaver could get their inspirations.