Repeated Information

Yesterday I decided that I should write about wool Flokati area rugs, so to Google I went to see what I could find. I did find how Floaki area rugs were made, but I also noticed something else. What I noticed is that out of the 15 websites I went to there was the same information. I understand that there is only one way to make a Floakti area rug, but all the sites were almost the same word for word. I am trying to decide if it is worth writing about them due to the fact that it is just the same information that is on all the other sites I visited............................................................................ I am still humming and hawing about what I should tell you about wool Flokati area rugs that will be unique and worth while reading.

Wool Flokati area rugs are made in Greece always have and always will. For a rug to be labelled as an authentic Flokati area rug they have to be cleaned in the Pindos mountains. The waterfalls there do something to the wool apparently that is very unique, so unique in fact that it cannot be duplicated by science nor any other means. That does not mean that there are not Flokati knock-offs being made, but genuine Flokati area rugs do not contain any other type of fiber only wool and these days it seems to be New Zealand wool.

This blog may not have a good flow to it due to the fact that I am under the weather, so please forgive me. Okay I am getting frustrated because I started this blog on the first of Oct. and it is now the 8th of Oct., that makes 5 days on this one blog and my head is too fuzzy to concentrate, plus I cannot stop coughing. I will write whatever mess of words comes out then I will come back when I am well and edit it. Right now I cannot guarantee a well written blog.

The unique weave of a Flokati rug is the result of the top fibers starting out as big loops. After the rug is completed the loops are cut to the desired length, usually 3-6 inches. The rugs are then washed for about forty hours under strong water pressure with no soap or detergents. It is the special water from the Pindos mountains and the pressure that make a Flokati a Flokati area rug. Now depending on what information to believe from the websites I visited it is said that the water causes the wool to swell and become very soft. The rugs are then dried in the sun and 'graded' by weight. The highest quality of Flokati is 4000 grams per square meter. I searched to find what weight the minimum grade was, I couldn't find the words 'minimum grade', but I did find Flokati area rugs that were graded at 1400 grams that seems pretty minimum grade to me.

The most common colour for Flokati area rugs is white or off white, but they come in a wide variety of colour to fit your every mood. Flokati area rugs are gaining popularity because of the desire to have a retro decor. In the 1980's Flokati rugs were a prize on the game show Press Your Luck, but were not desired by the contestants.


The picture on the left is a 5x8 wool Flokati (the colour difference is caused by the windows in our shop not the rug) and the picture below shows the back and front of a wool Flokati.

As beautiful as Flokati rugs are they do pose some cleaning challenges. With the fibers being long vacuuming them is not recommended. It is best to shake out the dry loose soil. Some websites I visited gave instructions on how to clean Flokati rugs, I was surprised that not one of the sites said to get them cleaned by a professional.

They made it seem so simple, but cleaning a Flokati rug is time consuming and it can become frustrating if the fibers become tangled and the fact that the rug will be heavy and wet.
 
Luv-A-Rug can clean your Flokati area rug with no frustration to you at all. Give us a call at 250-590-6210/ 800-886-2802, or drop by 445 Beta St Victoria BC.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

A Lazy Weaver?

On the weekend a local auction house had an area rug auction. Between yesterday and today we have received 8 of those rugs for cleaning, 3 yesterday and 5 today. Out of those 8 area rugs 5 are Persians, 1 Peking Chinese, 1 British India and 1 Wool Tufted. The Persians are your typical Persians, red/navy/cream/tan coloured pattern. My boss thinks I have lousy taste in rugs because I don't much care for the colours they used in Persians.
When I started working at Luv-A-Rug in May of 2007 I knew nothing about area rugs except that they existed. As I looked at the rugs coming in for cleaning I found that I wasn't very fond of Persians. It took me a little while to figure out what I didn't like about most of them, and it was the red and blue colour combination.
We've had a gorgeous medium lilac Persian in the shop for cleaning last year and I liked that one. I appreciate the workmanship that goes into making a hand knotted area rug and I understand why the reds and blues all look the same, they just aren't my kind of area rug to own personally. The rug that I am featuring today is one of the auction rugs, it is a Persian with two interesting features.
At first glance I thought that it might have been moth damage, I seem to zoom in on moth damage it can be kinda freakish sometimes, but after a closer inspection I think the weaver got lazy.
The first picture is of the corner area of the rug, I didn't take a full picture of the rug because it was big and we had just rolled it up when I decided that it would be today's blog topic, so I was the lazy shop worker.



I am not very proficient at how area rugs are woven, but in this picture it looks like it has double warp yarns and the weaver didn't go around both warps in the one area. That is my best guess as to why the warp is showing. If there is a better explanation please let me know.


This picture is all about the orange detailing around the leaf. When I look at the area rug as a whole the orange grabs my eye. A small little detail, but it adds a lot of impact. That is my greatest love of area rugs is the little details that make it stand apart.
As a crafter I enjoy adding such things to make my works stand out and area rug weavers do the same. There is a little more orange in one of the borders of the area rug, but it mostly stands out against the green of the leaf. The pictures were tweaked to show the detailing so I could point out those areas.
Thanks for reading RugloverMary

HELP! My Rug has changed colour after I cleaned it

When buying an area rug you have to consider the size, colour, design, checking for bad smells and fibers shedding. As if that doesn't seem like enough I come along and write about one more thing to add to the list. This isn't a new thing, but it is the first time I have noticed it in a wool hand tufted designer area rug.

A lady brought her area rug that had an unfortunate pet accident in to Luv-A-Rug for a cleaning. She used everyday baking soda and a home steam cleaner to spot clean the affected area. After she was done cleaning it she noticed it had turned white in the area she spot cleaned, as shown in the picture below.
Now baking soda isn't great for a wool rug to begin with, but it seemed to remove the colour way too easily.

Usually baking soda lightens only the spot where used not the whole area that was steamed cleaned. I was a bit baffled as to why the rug lightened so easily.

As I am racking my brain for an answer for the client I separated the fibers of the rug and found the reason as to why her area rug changed colour so easily.

The picture may not show it too well, but the tips of the fibers are a golden colour while the rest of the wool fiber is an off white. The other colours used in the design were the same all the way through except the white.

The reason for the is that after the rug was made someone decided that the white didn't look right and changed it to a golden colour.

The process used is call "tea staining",it is a good way to make a rug look antique. The manufacturer uses synthetic dyes, herbs or even tea in a wash to only dye the tips of the fibers to give the rug a warm yellow antique look.

When you are selecting an area rug check the fibers to see if the colour is uniform all the way down the fiber, especially when you are looking at a hand tufted rug (a tufted rug is a rug that has a fabric backing on it).

By checking a rug thoroughly before buying saves you money, time and the headache of finding out that your is ruined because of tea staining and improper cleaning.

Thanks for reading, RugloverMary

Busts and Moos

Today at Luv-A-Rug we had a day of firsts. It started with a phone call at 10:15am. A lady was wondering the cost to clean a cow hide rug. Pardon a cow hide? I thought I mis-heard her. Having a cow hide as an area rug isn't something you come across everyday.
When she brought the area rug in it was an honest to goodness real cow's hide. It is about 6 feet by 6 feet in the shape of a real cow and a very pretty brown colour. It is weird I didn't have any issues with a cow hide area rug, but I did have a issue with touching a camel hair area rug. Don't know why. You would think that since I grew up around cows that I would be bothered by seeing a cow hide, but no not at all. I did have an issue with a Zebra hide and Bear skin rugs make me laugh.

A few minutes after the cow hide area rug, we had a lady brings in two tailoring busts for cleaning. It was turning out to be an interesting day for cleaning unusual items. Not unusual in the sense of what they were, but unusual in the sense that we had never had the opportunity to clean a cow hide or tailoring busts before. We've had sheep skin,camel and goat hair area rugs, we've cleaned stuffed toys and luggage, even a mascot head, but no busts or cows. It is good to be able to clean more than area rugs, it helps you stay on your toes and gives you a break from all the area rugs.

Thanks for reading RugloverMary

A bit of Excitment!! Moth larva

Yesterday I was waiting for my bus and I saw two purple flowers growing in the grass. They stirred something in me so I took a couple of photos. As I looked at them I thought 'beauty in chaos' since there were no other flowers near by just some weeds and garbage. With it being an anniversary of 911 it seem appropriate to see beauty surrounded by chaos.
Today I got very excited on the inside and a little excited on the outside when I was doing my visual inspection of a British India area rug today. If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you that I am weird and a little off the beaten path. I get excited and happy about the weirdest things. One of those things is live moth larva.
 It is spooky how I seem to zoom in on moth casings. Not only was there lots of moth casings there was a live larvae!! It seemed to be newly hatched because it was still clear and very small.
I couldn't find it again to snap a picture of it. It hid back into the rug when I pulled out some fibers. The rug was sadly sent for disposal. A little tiny worm like rug eater got my passion stirring. The pictures show some of the moth eaten damage and their excrement.
If you have an area rug that is under a piece of furniture that you cannot vacuum under, you might want to move the furniture and look for rice shaped objects. They will either be an off white or the colour of you area rug and there maybe lots of concentrated sand looking dirt. Luv-A-Rug can help you if you find moth evidence on your are rug.
I told the client to go home and inspect their other rugs and woolens for moth activity. If you would like to know more about moths visit our website www.luvarug.com.
Thank you for reading, RugloverMary

The Moore Cleaning Machine

This week my boss "Dusty" has been cleaning out the old shop. It is amazing how much stuff was in there from boxes of papers to a huge rug washing machine. It is the rug washing machine I would like to write about today.
If you are looking to start up an area rug cleaning business or need to expand your existing area rug cleaning shop, does Dusty have a deal for you.
The Moore Rug washing machine is the finest area rug cleaning machine out there. It shampoos, rinses and extracts all in one machine. The following is the ad that Dusty has written with some edits by me. Any and all inquires will be answered by him. Please note that Dusty is located in the Pacific time zone, so keep in mind when you are phoning from another time zone that you may not get an answer at 3:00am Pacific time, he he!

FOR SALE..............MOORE AUTOMATIC RUG WASHING MACHINE

The finest automatic rug washing equipment on the planet is for sale because of the fire in the building where our rug plant was.

Anyone looking for full automatic area rug cleaning equipment?

Maybe your current Moore washer is ready to retire or your business is hugely busy..Perhaps you are a visionary and can see your business growing over the next little while and you will be needing a time saving machine like this!

We purchased a used Moore machine a couple of years ago and gave it a huge overhaul. The bottom end and frame are better then new and all other parts have been examined and replaced as needed. The new part is all white. The green part is original, but all worn parts have been replaced, it just needs a coat of paint, possible your business colours or Rug Badger red, but I did not get this done before we had to vacate the building.

These machines were built by Mr. Moore in Indiana and he sold the last ones for well over 120K.

You can have this one for 80K and it is better then new with a stronger frame with almost all the rubber parts replaced with new feed and rinse bed belts. 

Specs: 16' wide roller-jet model. Originally built in 1980
Footprint is about 8'x 19' and runs on 208v 3 phase power.

Feel free to email, phone me or skype me for more pics and info.

Area rug washing and carpet cleaning equipment for sale.
If you are interested in smaller rug cleaning equipment such as a rug duster or beater, rug wringer or centrifuge or even a dry tower to hang wet rugs on for quick drying then check out our website at: www.rugbadger.com

Note that all white area is new and painted with the highest quality epoxy paint for decades of rust free service. Green area is original with all parts replaced as needed.

Stephen "Dusty" Roberts
866 885 7847

Thanks for reading RugloverMary

Big Bang...............Why?

I am standing on my soap box! Last night as I am putting away the mountain of laundry that has accumulated I hear on the radio that Sept 9 may have been our last day on earth. Huh! Okay so tomorrow I may not wake up, that kinda sucks since there is a lot I still need to accomplish. That got me thinking about how I would spend my last few hours on earth if that was the case. I will not bore you with what I would do, but what I did do was finish matching up all the socks and cuddled with my two dogs and went to sleep hoping that there would be no engulfing black hole.
I then thought of the pandemonium such an occurrence would cause. We as humans have some very stupid tendencies. As I read a news report on the experiment that took place last night/ this morning I remembered watching a show on the Discovery channel about them building the machine and I had the same thoughts now as I did when I watched the show a few months ago. WHY? Am I ignorant of something, did I fall asleep in class that day?, I don't think so. I don't understand why we need to spend up to, but probably beyond, 9 billion, yes billion, dollars to have particles smash into each other. Human males do it for free all the time.
I am obviously wired differently because I can think of 9 billion other ways to spend 9 billion dollars like getting rid off hunger,poverty, war, saving the earth from all the damage we have caused or maybe designing a pair of pantyhose that don't run.
Okay maybe not the pantyhose, but you get me drift. I read the report a couple of times to find out the reason why they are doing this. This is the reason I found and it may cause some disagreement, but it is after all my and all my opinion; Physicists are looking for a never-before-seen particle called Higgs boson that apparently impacts every other particle out there. Basically they are out to prove to everyone that the reason they spend their life doing what they do isn't in vain. I am sorry, but that seems silly.
I may have interpreted the reason incorrectly, but it does seem like a big waste of time and resources just to make particles collide and the physicists don't even know what they will learn from this. This time they learnt that they didn't make a black hole happen, yippee for the human race!
I should make this fit into area rug cleaning,and have written and deleted everything I have tried to fit into the big bang topic. I could say that it is not likely that most people would not spend 9 billion to find out how an area rug was made, but some people do spend millions to own a unique area rug.
Thanks for reading RugloverMary