At The Edge -Oriental Rug Fringe Repair

It turns out that rugs, in some ways at least, are like their owners:  we can get in trouble when we live on the edge.  At the edge is where the vacuum sucks up fringes.  At the edge is wear heavy chairs pull and tug.  At the edge is wear hungry pets chew and yank.  All this stress on the edges of our rugs is what can damage fringes and eventually leave the pile ready to come undone.  For this reason, when we do an inspection of any rug, the fringes are what we look at first.   Fringes are the area most vulnerable to damage and what are definitely easier to repair and restore at the first signs of damage rather than when the damage is allowed to get more extensive.  

We recommend owners of handmade rugs do regular periodic inspections of their rugs, perhaps at the same time that they are rotating the rug 180 degrees so that any sun muting or foot traffic patterns are more evenly dispersed.  Look to see if any fringes are wearing down or if any of the binding of the fringes is coming undone.  Fringe repair at the early stages of fringe damage can be limited to just replacing the fringe binding, which would minimize the risk of any unraveling of the fringe or knotted pile.  Fringe repair at later stages of fringe damage can include fringe reconstruction, reknotting pile, and edge binding.  This more extensive fringe restoration is often significantly more time and skill intensive, and therefore, significantly more costly than repair done at the earlier stages of fringe damage.  --www.traditionalrugrepair.com