Job completed for 19th Century Flatwoven Rug Cleaning and Repair in Shokan

This is an example of a Turkish kilim

The palette of ivory, sage green, muted blue, tan, and rust is characteristic of decorative village weavings that have been popular in Western interiors.

The rug is a very well woven rug and the rug requires enormous cleaning and color restoration.

It does appear to be a flatwoven kilim, and it has several areas where the weft yarns have worn completely through.

Jafri Rugs has the following:

• There are multiple horizontal worn areas where the colored weft threads have disappeared, exposing the warp threads.
• The damage is consistent with long-term abrasion, likely from foot traffic or furniture rather than a single tear.
• The surrounding weave still appears reasonably stable, which is encouraging. The rug does not look like it's disintegrating, but the damaged sections will continue to enlarge if left untreated.

This rug should absolutely be restored 

The appropriate treatment is reweaving, not patching.

Jafri skilled artisan kilim restoration weavers would do the following:

1. Stabilize the existing warp threads.
2. Hand-weave new weft yarns into the worn areas using wool that matches the original colors and thickness.
3. Blend the repairs so the pattern and stripes are as continuous as possible.

Because the losses occur in several places, this is a labor-intensive repair. The cost depends on the total length of the damaged areas, the fineness of the weave, and how closely you want the repairs to match the original.

Is it worth repairing?

If the kilim is:

• an older handmade piece,
• has sentimental value,
• or is a good-quality tribal weaving,

then this type of restoration is often worthwhile. Proper reweaving preserves both the structure and the appearance much better than adhesive patches or backing fabrics.