Restoration and Cleaning

With exceptional pieces one needs superior quality of repair, whether the work is minor: small holes, replacement fringes, side cord rebinding or major restoration: full repiling, reweaves of large areas (a recent project was the reweaving of one third section of an important William Morris carpet), care is taken to maintain the integrity of the piece, over-restoration can take away the originality of the item, a calculated balance is often the best result. With historical pieces prior to any commencement of work full research will be undertaken to find any references to original design elements.

Tapestry work needs carefull maintenance as they are generally hung against walls which can often be humid and cause dampness. To avoid these problems we recommend tapestries to be linned with pre-washed linen which prevents shrinkage and to combat any dampness, ventilation is necessary, the linning is sown in a manner to allow acess of airflow. As regards to hanging we recommend the application of Velcro to the backing which will take an even distribution of the weight, unlike using metal rings which will create the tapestry to sag and not hang uniform.

Merticulous attention is given to the selection of the various wool and silk yarns used in the restoration and in order to achieve a corect match of colour, numerous attempts of the hand dying process will have to be undertakenin order to achieve a sucessful result.