I was just going to post a reply to her comment, but I thought I would do a whole blog about it.
The cleaning concerns about hand hooked area rugs are as follows:
- the colours could bleed
- the backing could shrink, making the rug bumpy and mis-shapened
- stitches could unhook
- the stitches could shrink, causing the design to look funny
Since hand hooked rugs are mostly used as wall hangings they don't need to be cleaned very often, about once a year or Vacuuming them about once a month with the little brush attachment on your vacuum will remove the dust that the rug collects on a daily basis.
Ask your local rug cleaner if they clean hand hooked rugs and how they clean them. It may be best to use a rug that you don't like or make a sample rug with lots of bright colours and get them to clean it.
A reminder if you don't feel comfortable with the way the cleaner is answering your questions, then follow your gut. You put a lot of effort into making your works of art don't leave it to chance that it will be cleaned properly.
When we get in a hand hooked rug for cleaning I explain the following:
- We test the colours to make sure they won't run
- We do try to do a wet clean, but most of the time hand hooked may get dry cleaned depending on the types of fibers used and the delicacy of the rug
- If our cleaning guy has an hesitation about the cleaning results of a rug he simply will not chance it.
Not cleaning hand hooks rugs can make a rug look dull and make you fall out of love with it. That is not good.
If there are any rug cleaners in the Newfoundland area, Mid West of USA please make it known that you can safely and gently clean precious hand hooked rugs.
Leave your information in my comments area and a link to your website.
Thanks for reading, RugloverMary
