Not sniffing high, though if I work too long that might happen, too. In this case high=happy.

I have an old oriental carpet in my living room. Very old. It has patched areas. The fringe is gone from the ends. And it is very worn in spots. In those worn spots the warp thread shows through. It’s white. The wool is mostly red with other relatively dark colors. The light colors are not white — light blue, creamy beige and gold.

Well, I probably can’t afford a pristine new oriental carpet, so this is it. But those white threads have been a nuisance. It looks like it needs to be vacuumed all the time–even after I just vacuumed!

I thought I had mor photos, but apparently not.

I was down on the floor when I took this. It actually does need vacuuming, but when standing, the obvious-this-close threads just look like more crumbs, thread snips and whatever else needs to be vacuumed away.

I was thinking of a way to make it look better and there happened to be a box of sharpies next to me a . . . Voilà! I got down on my knees and started “coloring.”

It looks more splotchy in the photo than in real life, partly because it’s fresh and not dry yet. It doesn’t actually hide the worn spots. It just makes them blend in so much better. I go over it with both red and dark pink, which combination is closer to the actual carpet wool. After it dries, I need to go back and redo a few (well, several, actually) spots.

This is a section I did a couple of days ago. You can see that the splotchiness does dissipate. (Hmmm . . . someone’s been eating crackers in the living room again.)

While on my knees today, taking photos, I saw that the blue needed color too. My Sharpie is not navy blue, but I figured I’d try it anyway.

I’m impressed. I took this while standing. The area around the bottom of the three flowers at the top right is the area in the previous photo.

So, yeah, I’m happy.

I need to remember to color from the top down, though.

This is what happens when I color from bottom to top. (Sheesh! No wonder I need to redo so much!)

This is also a job best done right after vacuuming–before the cracker cruncher wanders around the living room.