A rug is like a fabric waiting to unravel and the rug ends are the brakes. The rug will maintain its integrity as long as the ends are intact, but if otherwise, the rug will unravell before you know it. The ends and edges of oriental rugs act as a frame that the picture is sitting within; if the ends and edges are weak and not secure the picture can very easily fall out.

The foundation of a rug is the frame in which the rug is woven into. It is a grid of lines which creates the rectangular shape of the rug as well as determining the structural integrity of a rug. If you were to identify the grid of warp and wefts in a rug as the foundation and then imagine a sheet of graph paper; you can draw whatever you like, however you like as long as they go over the existing lines. In a similair way the size the grid of lines that is the foundation of the rug determine how fine and how strong a rug might be. There are multiple design for looms in different parts of the globe that allow for different types of knots and therefore different types of rugs to be woven. Regardless of the type of loom, the weaving process always stays the same. 

The purpose of mounting a damaged rug on the loom is to set the foundation under consistent and symmetrical tension as restoration is carried out. The frame/loom allows for the rug to stay completely flat so that the weavers can work on both sides of the rug. It is imperitive that the tension is kept the same throughtout all parts of the frame or else the end result will be a rug that is not completley flat with wrinkles and puckers. A lot of our work involves reconstructing rugs that have been subject to bad repairs from self-proclaimed proffessionals that only make the problem worse than it originally was, so it is always best to take your rug to a specialist as they can provide you the correct advise before moving ahed with the repairs.

The foundation of any rug handmade rug is either Cotton, wool, or silk. The image above shows the restoration of a baluch rug which had missing parts and damage to the foundation.The rug is placed on a horizantal loom and has threads passing through and connected to the foundation fibres below it, allowing for a frame for our weavers to work on and re weave the missing parts the same way the rug was created in the first place. The density of the foundation threads are dependent on the fineness of the piece, we will analyse the KPSI(Knots per square inch) and construct a loom based on the specification of you rug so that the finished product will look indistinguishable from its original state.

If ever in doubt about your rug or you have a question, please call the number above or use our contact form.