The damage from that silk velvet piece I mentioned above, was caused by the addition of some sodium perborate to the cleaning formula that would brighten what I thought was the nylon.
(Perborate forms peroxide, which damages silk)
OOPS!! The fibers that stick up, to form the pile, and was silk simply disintegrated, leaving a flat surface instead of pile surface. But not while I was there, it worked slowly, and was not noticeable while I was there.
Can't cover that up, or correct chemically.
DANG!!
I have been a silk specialist for a lotta years. But yes, I did goof on this one.
A close squeak on another occasion was in a million dollar home, in the conversation pit where 3 sides were a built in silk sofa facing a fireplace, I had done the the front base and one arm of one section, and started on the top back, when I saw black stuff wicking up from the front base, and as I watched, here comes black on the top of the one arm.
I got hold of the home owner, and showed the problem, telling him it was a black cambric material underneath the silk cover, supposed to reinforce the delicate silk.
I asked who had made the sofa. A local upholsterer I knew had done this before, using black cambric.
I told the owner to get the guy out, have him remove all the covering fabric, replace the black cambric with white, and recover the sofa.
Since the sofa was built in, it could not go into the shop for this work.
Then I would come out and remove the black bleeding and finish cleaning the sofa.
Which I did a couple weeks later, and yes, I do know how to charge for these kinds of services.
A close squeak, for sure. It could have gone differently.
Gary