What Is An "Oriental Rug"?

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1 What Is An "Oriental Rug"? Continuing confusion results from the common use of "Oriental rug" as a generic label for nearly any variety of patterned carpeting. Furniture stores, carpeting dealers, some large home improvement stores (and even some rug dealers) sell a constantly changing mix of machine-made and handmade rugs which they often lump together and advertise as "Oriental rugs". Often the salesperson in such a store has little or no knowledge about hand-knotted rugs, and does not clearly distinguish among the machine-made copies and the genuine Oriental rugs in his stock. For most all dealers in genuine Oriental rugs, an "Oriental rug" is a piled or flat woven fabric handknotted in one of the traditional weaving areas of the Middle or Far East. Genuine "Oriental rugs" come from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, and Turkey. Genuine Oriental rugs are not made in Belgium or anywhere else in Western Europe or in the United States (there are hand-woven rugs made by native Americans in the American Southwest, but these are called "Navajo rugs" or "American Indian rugs"). "Wilton", "Karistan" and "Couristan" rugs are rugs made by machine in Oriental rug designs; they are not "Oriental rugs". No genuine Oriental rugs are made of nylon or polypropylene. Adding to the confusion is the appearance of several varieties of hand-made rugs that are not handknotted rugs. Easiest to mistake for hand-knotted rugs are the hand-tufted rugs from China and India. Hand-tufted rugs are made using a "gun": a hand-operated tool that punches strands of wool

2 into a canvas stretched on a frame. The design of the rug is drawn on the canvas, and the worker fills in the pattern with the appropriate color wool. When the rug design is fully piled (and this can take as little as three or four days for a 9' x 12' carpet), the rug is removed from the frame and a scrim fabric is glued to the back of the rug. It is only the glue on the back of the rug that holds the wool pile in place--yarn is not knotted over warps as with a real Oriental rug. Because the tufting process does not produce the fringe that is normal to a hand-woven rug (where the fringe is the end of the warp strings that run from one end of the rug to the other), separate fringe (usually woven as a tape) is often glued or sewn to the ends of a tufted rug. Why Wool? Those with a sense of style, a sense of value, choose wool carpets and rugs. Why? Wool simply looks beautiful, long. Natural wool ages gracefully, continually renewing it self and developing a rich patina as years passes. While synthetic fibers will become scratched, scarred, and dull over time, wool carpets retain vibrant to the eye and supple to the touch. If your style demands high design and high performance; natural wool delivers, year after year after year. What makes wool so desirable? New Zealand wool is the whitest, cleanest, purest wool in the world; the natural choice for natural superiority. Wool is also very warm. It s fibers are nonconductors of heat and it s crimp permits it to enmesh still air. It is highly absorbent and releases moisture slowly. It s tensile strength is one-fourth greater than cotton. Wool is also very elastic, which makes wool cease resistance. Wool recovered 95% of its original thickness when compressed. Synthetic substitutes recovered 67% to 79%. No matter how it is twisted, crushed, or pulled, pure wool fill springs back to its original lush thickness. Unlike man-made materials, wool carpets are fire safe, providing beautiful peace of mind. Off the Sheep Sheep are sheered with mechanical clippers. The fleece thus removed is classed as lamb s wool, or first clip: Hog wool, clipped from 12 to 14 months old: Whether wool, from older animals: Tag locks, the ragged, discolored portion: and Pulled wool, usually weakened when recovered by sweating or chemical processes form the sheep slaughtered for mutton.

3 The Parts of an Oriental Rug... Warps are the parallel strings stretched from loom beam to loom beam upon which rows of knots are tied. Most weavers use cotton for warp material if it is available because it is easier to weave a flat, straight rug on cotton warps than on wool warps (wool yarn is more elastic than cotton string, and is more affected by changes in humidity). Weavers who are semi-nomadic pastoralists (i.e. not farmers) are much more likely to use wool than cotton for warp and weft. Wefts run across the width of the rug, over and under the warp strings and between rows of knots. Most often wefts are made of cotton, wool, or silk. Wefts help hold rows of knots in place and strengthen the structure of the rug. Knots are tied by looping yarn around pairs of warps and cutting off the standing end. The ends of the "knot" become the pile or nap of the rug. Edge bindings are made by wrapping several warps at the edge of the rug with yarn to reinforce this part of the rug. End finishes hold knots and wefts from working off the rug's warp strings. Many rug types have a flat-woven kilim selvedge at both ends. Fringes are formed by gathering and knotting together bundles of warp strings at both ends of the rug after the rug has been cut from the loom. The knots in these bundles of warp strings keep pile knots and end finishes tight at the rug's ends.

4 The Parts of a Rug Design... The field is the background of the rug inside the borders. The main border is the widest decorative design around the outside of the rug; guard borders are the narrow decorative designs flanking the main border. The medallion is the round, oval, or polygonal design element that sometimes occupies the center of the field. Corner brackets or spandrels are designs which sometimes fill the corners of the field.

5 The Parts of a Rug Loom... Most weavers work on fixed, vertical looms (although some semi-nomadic weavers in areas of Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iran still use the more portable horizontal ground loom). A simple vertical loom is little more than a sturdy frame, usually made of wooden timbers, designed to hold taut the warp strings upon which the weaver ties rows of knots. A heddle is used to separate alternate warps so that the shuttle carrying the weft string can be passed between warps from one side of the rug to the other. More sophisticated vertical looms have their upper and lower beams constructed as rollers. A roller loom lets the weaver roll the completed part of a rug under and to the back of the loom, allowing the construction of a longer carpet on a loom of the same vertical size.

6 A Rug Weavers' Tools... Most weavers work with a hooked knife, or gollab in one hand (top tool in photo). A weaver uses a finger to push the yarn through the warps, then uses the hook on the knife to catch the yarn behind the warps and pull it to the face of the rug. After the knot is tied the weaver cuts the yarn with a flick of the blade. After several rows of knots are tied across the width of the loom, the weaver uses a comb or beater (middle tool in photo) made of metal or wood to beat down the warps and rows of knots to consolidate the weave. After a strip of pile an inch or so wide is woven across the width of the loom, the weaver uses scissors to clip the nap back to nearly its final heigth. The scissors have handles bent so that the blades can cut flush with the face of the rug. Like the knife and comb, the scissors are made by the blacksmith down the street in the village: when they get dull, a boy runs them back for sharpening.

7 The Kinds of Rug Knots There are basically two kinds of "knots" used to make most pile-woven Oriental rugs: "Persian" and "Turkish" knots Both Persian (Senneh) and Turkish (Ghiordes) knots are usually tied around pairs of warp strings. The Persian or Senneh knot is asymmetric and may be open to either the right or left. These four Persian knots are open to the right. Turkish or Ghiordes knots are symmetric. This example shows four Turkish knots.

8 Jufti Knots Jufti or "false" knots can be either Persian or Turkish style. Jufti knots are tied around four warps instead of the normal two. A rug made with jufti knots uses half the material and takes only half as much time to make -- but probably will only last half as long! It is common with some rug types (such as BOKHARAS) to find areas of jufti knots interspersed with regular Persian knots. Persian Jufti Turkish Jufti Who uses which knot type? Most weaving areas use the Persian knot. Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and some areas of northwestern Iran use the Turkish knot.

9 How to Count Rug Knots... Learn how to count rug knots. If you think you already know how to count rug knots, you can jump to our quiz. Counting Rug Knots... Knot density (knots per square inch) is an important indicator of rug quality. Most weaves are measured simply by counting the number of knots per linear inch along the warp (i.e., along the length of the rug) and the number of knots per linear inch along the weft (across the width of the rug) and multiplying to get the number of knots per square inch (or per sq. cm.). Unfortunately, this simple concept can be tricky to apply in practice. Because of the ways in which rug structure can vary, individual knots can be difficult to isolate from the back of the rug (it's impossible to distinguish separate knots from the face of the rug). This is one Turkish knot, even though the wool wraps around two warps. Often the warps of the rug lie on the same plane. If the warps of the rug lie on the same plane, each knot (whether Turkish or Persian) will show on the back of the rug as two tiny squares of the same color next to each other across the width of the rug. The warps of this Turkish-knotted rug lie on the same plane. You are looking at one cream-colored Turkish knot (surrounded by navy knots and red wefts) from the back of a Turkish rug. Can you see the two side-byside elements of this knot? If you are counting the knots in this rug, the two cream bumps count as one knot. Sometimes the warps are offset so greatly that from the back of the rug alternate warps are hidden. If this occurs, each knot (whether Turkish or Persian) will show on the back of the rug as a single tiny square of color.

10 The warps of this Turkish-knotted rug are offset. You are looking at one light blue Persian knot (surrounded by pink knots) from the back of a Pakistani rug. Because alternate warps are so strongly offset, you can only see one element of the knot across the width of the rug. If you are counting the knots in this rug, the one light blue bump counts as one knot. How do you know when to count one bump on the back of the rug as one knot? It's easy -- look carefully at the individual areas of color across the width of the back of the rug. If you only see colored elements in pairs, you need to count each pair as one knot. If you see lots of single colored elements, the rug has offset warps and each element should be counted as one knot. Many country rugs from Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iran show both knot elements on the back of the rug, as do Bokharas from Pakistan. Most rugs from India and China have strongly offset warps, and so show only one knot element on the back of the rug. Think you've got it? Take our knot-counting quiz. Try our Knot Counting Quiz... Think you've got it? Test yourself by counting the knots per square inch in the samples below. Each sample represents a 1" x 1" section of the back of a rug How many knots do you count per square inch? How many knots do you count per square inch?

11 The Right Answer The Right Answer This rug has strongly offset warps. This rug's warps are in one plane. There are 8 knots across the width of the picture and 11 rows of knots from top to bottom. This rug has 8 x 11 or 88 knots per sq. in. There are 15 knots across the width of the picture and 15 rows of knots from top to bottom. This rug has 15 x 15 or 225 knots per sq. in. Rug Dyes... There exists a very widespread belief that "vegetable" or "natural" dyes are superior to "synthetic" dyes, and that a rug woven with "vegetable" dyes is in all ways a better carpet than a rug woven with synthetic colors. In fact, it is usually not possible to separate the dyestuffs used in many rugs into these two neat categories, and even were this possible, some "vegetable" dyes are much more fugitive in color or even damaging to the wool than the "synthetic" dyestuff that yields the equivalent shade. In general, "vegetable dyes" are taken to be an indication of a more traditional, more rural, more country rug weaving, while synthetic dyes are considered more characteristic of city or commercial production. If a village weaver could obtain a synthetic dye, he or she was very likely to use it right alongside his traditional dyestuffs. Just because a rug is 50 years old does not mean it is "vegetable" dyed. Nor does a "vegetable" dye guarantee a longer life or higher value to the carpet. The "vegetable" black we find in so many old Turkish and Balouch rugs is so corrosive that areas of black nap will be completely worn away while nap of other colors is still thick and fully piled. Had the black been a good chrome synthetic, the rug would be in much better condition.

12 Common "Vegetable" Dyes... Color in the rug From this material Notes red to orange root of the madder plant Rubia tinctoria Salmon depleted madder dye as dye baths are re-used, the dye gets weaker and colors get lighter bright red to burgundy cochineal (dried insect carapace) often from Dactylopius coccus blue-red to purple-red lac (resin secreted by insect) often from Coccus laccae light blue to navy pale yellow to yellow-brown indigo (extracted from the indigo plant) larkspur or isparuk (a flowering plant) Indigoferra Delphinium sulpureum pale yellow to yellow-brown weld (a flowering herb) Reseda luteola Brown oak bark, tree galls Quercus Black tannin, oak tree galls, iron this dye is often damaging to wool Green double-dye of larkspur and indigo Vegetable Dyeing Techniques... Common vegetable dyes The most commonly used vegetable dyes are indigo (originally obtained by extracting and fermenting indican from the leaves of the indigo plant), madder (produced by boiling the dried, chunked root of the madder plant in the dye pot), and larkspur (produced by boiling the crushed leaves, stems, and flowers of the larkspur plant). These dyes produce, respectively, dark navy blue, dark rusty-red, and muted gold. Long ago dyers realized that as more wool was dyed in a single dyepot, colors became weaker and weaker. Dyers use this notion of depleated dyes to their advantage. The first dyeing produces a deep, strong color. Subsequent dyeings in the same dyepot produce lighter, softer colors (like the three shades of indigo, madder, and yellow illustrated here): Dyers also quickly learned to combine colors to produce different hues. There is, for instance, no "vegetable" dye material that yields green (an important color if you're interested in weaving a floral design!). First dyeing wool blue, then dyeing it again with yellow, does produce a green color. If you look closely at the green color in a vegetable-dyed rug, you will commonly see that the color is uneven, more blue-green in some areas, and more yellow-green in others. This is because of the double-dyeing technique:

13 So, by using the notion that depleted dyes produce different hues, and by combining some dyes through overdyeing wool, dyers can produce a surprisingly large pallette of colors from a very limited variety of materials. These people are clever!

14 Oriental Rug Designs... A good way to categorize Oriental rug designs is not to group them by age or country of origin, but by whether they come from country or city areas. Country Rugs... This BALOUCH is a "country" rug. Handspun wool pile Wool warp and weft Vegetable dyes; bold geometric design Weave: 65 knots/sq. in. 3' x 4'7" - $350 Country rugs are often less tightly knotted than city rugs. Typically, their designs are more simply drawn, and are often bold and geometric. Country rugs are usually woven of locally available materials. Many weavers, for instance, use cotton for the warp and weft of the rugs they make (cotton is less elastic than wool, and it is easier to weave a straight and flat carpet on cotton foundation). Semi-nomadic pastoralists like some Balouch and Afghans, however, use wool for their warp and weft because they do not produce cotton themselves. Country rugs often use fewer colors (five or six) than city rugs, and some country rugs still use vegetable dyes like madder and indigo.

15 City Rugs... This very fine ISFAHAN from Iran is a "city" rug. Fine machine-spun wool pile Silk warp; silk inlay in the field Synthetic dyes; intricate floral design Weave: 440 knots/sq. in. 3'6" x 5'6" - $2,100 Cities are amalgamations of people from many different areas, and weavers working in urban areas have the chance to see many different kinds of rug designs and qualities. City rugs are often more self-conscious rugs: the weaver is making the rug to sell, and so chooses colors and design not so much on the basis of what is traditional, but on what is likely to sell in the market. City rugs are often the product of very specialized labor. Whereas the country weaver might build the loom, prepare and dye the wool, decide on the design, and weave and wash the rug, these functions are usually performed by different people in the city. Often there is an entrepreneur who hires designers, graph makers, dyers, weavers, and washers to make especially high quality carpets, rugs which would take too long to weave and involve too much investment for a weaver working all alone. These City rugs are often very tightly knotted with very intricate patterns of many colors (more than ten). There is a linkage between the number of knots per sq. in. in the rug and the thickness of the pile: if a rug is very tightly knotted with an intricate design, the weaver usually clips the nap short so that the design renders with maximum clarity. Fine City rugs are often closely clipped.

16 How Long Does It Take? Before you begin weaving your own Oriental rug, consider this. A skilled weaver in India can tie about 6,000 knots per day. Thus the time for one person to knot a 9' x 12' rug in several common qualities works out like this: (Note that usually more than one person works at a time on rugs from about 4' x 6' and larger. To get the actual weaving time for a carpet, you'd need to divide the "Time required" shown here by the number of weavers working simultaneously on the rug). Quality Knots/sq.in. Knots/sq.ft. Days/sq.ft. Knots in a 9' x 12' Carpet Time required to knot a 9' x 12' Carpet "6/40" 60 8, , days (5 months) "7/52" 91 13, ,415, days (7.9 months) "9/60" , ,099, days (11.5 months) "12/60" , ,799, days (15.5 months) Remember that these estimates do not include the time needed to prepare the wool (for wool clipping, carding, spinning, and dyeing), to map the design (about 8 days for a 12/60 quality rug), or to wash and clip the finished carpet (more than 15 days for a 12/60 quality 9' x 12' carpet). Rug Weaving and Child Labor... Our company has traveled regularly to weaving areas throughout the Middle East. These days we make two or three trips each year. There are two basic reasons for all this travel on our part: The nearer we get to the loom, the less we pay for the rug. By traveling to the weaving village we get to see exactly who is making the rug, and we have the chance to inspect the quality of the materials they're using. In many ways, this second reason is more important than the first. Americans who have never traveled beyond Europe are sometimes surprised to learn that items like labor unions, the 40 hour work week, and government-sponsored unemployment insurance are recent Western inventions. Most of the people in the world still live in agrarian societies much like the America of the 1820's and 30's. As in 19th Century America, people in most of today's agrarian societies face a life of physical labor as subsistence farmers. Crops are planted by hand, harvested by hand, and processed and stored for local consumption. Families produce as many daily necessities themselves as they can; others can be bartered for in the nearby village. Cash is always difficult to earn. If you have a bumper rice crop this year, so does everyone else in your whole

17 district: you can't sell your surplus to your neighbor because he has as much extra rice as you do. In most rug making areas, weaving is a way for a farming family to produce a product which they can sell for cash. If you're a good weaver, it doesn't matter how many other people in your village make rugs: there will still be a cash market for your rug because it is better made than the rest. The rub in this whole scheme for us in the West is that in these areas children are almost always expected to work alongside their parents to contribute to the support of the family (in the same way that farm kids in the US have always been expected to help with the chores). Kids do jobs appropriate to their ages. Younger children watch after the sheep or goats; older children help in the fields with whatever work needs to be done. Even basic government schools usually cost money for materials, and fancier schools cost money for admission fees, uniforms, and books. Rarely is there the money to send children to school, and besides, they're needed to help do the family's work. Child Labor Some of the work children help with is carpet weaving. Although in a completely beneficent world anyone would prefer to see children everywhere in the world have a Western-style childhood with the opportunity for a sophisticated education, we do not see child labor within the family unit as a horrible thing ("within the family unit" is the crucial phrase). Weaving learned from a mother, grandmother, father or brother is a specialized skill which can produce a cash income for the weaver and the family. If the choice is between stoop labor in the fields and weaving, there is no question but that weaving is by far the better life. For years we've supported the "Care & Fare" program organized in India to oversee child labor and provide at least an elementary education for the children of weaving families. Bonded Labor Unfortunately, there is in weaving countries like India, Pakistan, and Nepal another form of child labor that is completely abusive and evil. Bonded labor is the practice of renting, buying, or stealing a person purely to exploit their ability to work. One of our partners visited a "carpet factory" owned by an Indian rug exporter in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal. We were surprised to find a guard outside the gate to the building. "Why the guard? Do you have a problem with people breaking into the building?" we asked. "Oh no, the guard is not to keep people out, but to keep the weavers in" came the reply. Inside the building were perhaps a hundred boys and girls ranging in age from three or four to twelve or thirteen. They had been collected by labor contractors in rural villages days or weeks travel (by foot) from Kathmandu. The children worked seven days a week, from first light until dark. If a child fell ill or was uncooperative, the factory manager took him to the other side of Kathmandu and left him by the side of the road. Not a nice place to visit for even an hour, and not a very comfortable memory. How to Avoid Rugs Made with Bonded Labor One of the enduring myths of the rug business is that "fine rugs are made by children because only they have the little fingers that can tie such tiny knots." In fact, precisely the opposite is true. The lowest quality, cheapest labor is child labor because children are so unskilled and inexperienced at the craft. When pocket watches and clocks were made by hand in pre-industrial Europe, they were not made by children, even though they required the fabrication of tiny gears, springs, and ratchets. Adult men did this work because it was so demanding and difficult. Making a watch escapement by hand would be an impossible task for a child. If a rug maker decides to cut corners on the quality of the wool, the dyes, or the weave of a rug, he is much more likely to try to find bonded labor to make the rug. The surest way to avoid a rug made with bonded labor is to buy a medium or better quality rug. Just a step or two up from the junkiest and cheapest handmade carpet

18 means that you are buying a rug made by a person who has taken years to learn the craft. This rug was made by an adult who is weaving for the cash income the work produces. We've traveled uncounted kilometers over the years precisely so that we can get to the looms and meet the weavers... and avoid the "carpet factory" nightmare. Cleaning Oriental Rugs... The best way to keep a rug clean is to keep it from getting dirty in the first place. Removing outdoor shoes when entering the house (as people do in most rug-weaving countries) is a good idea if this accords with your lifestyle. Bare-foot or sock-foot traffic is much gentler to a rug than a hard outdoor-shoe sole (or spike heel), and leaving your outdoor shoes at the entrance to the house tracks in much less dirt. Have your rug cleaned only when it really needs it. For rugs in some areas this will mean a yearly cleaning. Rugs in other areas can go several years and more without needing professional cleaning. To judge how dirty a rug is, try one of these methods: 1. Pick up a corner of the rug and while holding it, kick the back of the rug sharply. If a cloud of dirt flies out of the pile, the rug is dirty and needs cleaning. NOTE: some dust and wool fibers are normal! 2. Kneel down on the rug and rub the pile vigorously with your hand in a short arc for 5 to 10 seconds. Look at your fingers and palm: if your hand is dirty, the rug needs cleaning. 3. With the pile facing UP fold part of the rug back upon itself so that the pile opens along a line of knots. Look down into the base of the pile at the foundation of the rug. If the warp and weft look dirty, there is dirt deep in the pile where a home vacuum cleaner cannot reach it. The rug needs cleaning. Clean It Yourself It's easy to clean small rugs yourself. The process is best done in a utility room or garage (on a clean floor) or outside on a clean driveway or paved walk on a nice, sunny day: Vacuum both sides well. Shampoo the rug with cool water and mild liquid soap or rug shampoo (don't use strong detergents, ammonia water or sudsy ammonia water). TEST FOR COLOR RUN IN A SMALL AREA FIRST. Use a soft, long haired brush or a firm, non-shedding sponge. Brush the pile firmly with linear motions in the direction of the nap: don't scrub too vigorously. Wet the nap thoroughly with the soapy water. Wash fringes with the same soap solution. Use a laundry brush and brush repeatedly away from the pile. Rinse thoroughly with running water. Squeeze out excess water--a rubber window squeegee works well. Squeegee the pile repeatedly in the direction of the nap until no more water is forced out. Lay flat to dry. When the nap feels dry, turn the rug over; the back is probably still damp. DRY THOROUGHLY. If the pile feels a bit stiff when dry, brush gently or lightly vacuum.

19 Rug First Aid... Always try to work on the spill so as not to increase the area of the spill. Food spills/pet urine Of the most common spills, urine presents the most severe problem. It can cause severe color run in the rug, and the odor can be very hard to remove or disguise. Urine can also chemically damage the structure of a rug by making the foundation hard and less supple, and the presence of urine in a rug can help attract moths. Repeated wettings can cause the foundation of the rug to loose mechanical strength to the point where the rug cracks and breaks when rolled or folded. In case of a food spill or urine on a rug, the problem is much more easily handled if the spot is treated promptly, before the spill is allowed to dry. Blot up as much liquid as possible with paper towels or a clean, white cloth. Try to rinse out as much of the spill as possible. A smaller rug can be taken outside and rinsed with a hose and cool water (try not to saturate the whole rug-- it will take much longer to dry if you do). With a larger carpet, the corner or edge can be laid in a plastic dishpan and saturated with cool water or a bucket or plastic garbage can can be placed under the wet area of the carpet and cool water poured through the rug (make a hollow in the carpet over the container before you pour, and don't exceed the capacity of the container under the rug!). Add about 1 cup of white vinegar per gallon to the rinse water--vinegar helps prevent colors from running and will help neutralize the urine odor. After the rug has been rinsed, blot dry and sponge with rug shampoo or with the solution given below. Let dry thoroughly (drying a wet area of a larger carpet can be hastened by arranging the carpet so that air can circulate both top and bottom--drape the end of the carpet across a lawn chair, or put a sawhorse or painted bench under the rug in the area of the wet spot). Pet stool, regurgitation If a pet regurgitates on a rug, you are faced with removing a complex mixture of foodstuffs, saliva, and stomach acids. Depending on the foods involved, this mixture can actually work as a dilute dye to stain the pile a different hue. If a pet regurgitates or defecates on a rug, clean the area immediately by picking up as much material as possible with paper towels or with a clean, white cloth. If necessary, use a tablespoon to scrape up all the foreign material. Blot the area dry and immediately sponge several times with rug shampoo or with the cleaning solution listed below. Don't scrub hard--too much manipulation of the pile can spread the stain. Sponge in the direction of the nap. Spot Cleaning Solution 1/4 cup white vinegar* 1/2 tsp liquid dishwashing detergent 2 cups tepid water *Most Oriental rug dyes are acid-fast. By adding a little white vinegar to the wash water you make the wash water more acidic, and this reinforces the bond between the dyestuff and the wool in the rug, and so helps prevent the colors from running. Finally, sponge the area with cool, clean water to finish. Use absorbent towels or a firm, non-shedding sponge. Don't use a brush so stiff that it pulls fibers from the pile. Don't scrub hard at the pile. Sponge in the direction of the nap. Place some towels under the spot to keep floor or pad from getting wet. Dry thoroughly. When the nap feels dry, check the back of the rug to be sure the area is completely dry.

20 How Do You Know What Size Goes Where? As time progresses, you will learn how to distinguish what size of rug to put in your clients home. This chart will help you. Entry Single Door Double Door 3.x5. or 4.x6. 5.x8., 6.x9., 4. rnd, or 6. rnd Living Room The size of the rug will vary depending upon how many pieces of furniture you are using. 5.x8. For use with 1 sofa and a love seat or chair and coffee table. 6.x9. For use with 1 sofa and a love seat or chair and coffee table. 8.x10. For use with a sofa, love seat, chairs, end tables, and coffee table Also sometimes used with 2 sofas. This allows more space for more seating. 9.x12. This is usually used with many pieces. Sofa, love, chairs and ottoman, end tables, coffee table, sofa table.

21 Dining Room There are many different sizes that you can use under a dining room table. As will find out, some shapes and sizes look better than others. As a rule, leave 18 on either side from where the chair is sitting under the table. This allows room so that the chair does not snag when it is pulled in. Another thing to remember is to educate the customer to buy the rug For a 48 round dining table I usually recommend using a 6 Round or 6 Square rug. For a 54 round dining table I usually recommend Round or Square rug. 8.x10. For 6 chairs it is almost standard to use and 8.x10. This may seem big, but remember you need approximately 18 on either side to accommodate pulling out the chairs. 9.x12. This size of rug is usually placed under a table with 8 chairs. This can also be universally used if the customer decides to only use 6 chairs.