The Wicker Woman

Just how young is too young to be learning how-to cane a chair?

This is a picture of my 1 1/2 year old granddaughter, Lily, weaving away with me.

We have such fun chair caning together!

Check out the new basketry exhibition that was just posted to the Events Calendar for September!

“Anatomy of a Packbasket” runs through the end of November at TAUNY in Upstate New York.

After many long years of enjoyment, I have decided to part with six of my favorite antler baskets from my private collection.

These are antler basket wall sculptures as well as pedestal styles that I have had in my collection or have used in national art exhibitions, as demonstration samples or for juried competitions.

These antler baskets are for sale at greatly reduced prices, so if you are thinking ahead for Christmas gifts, now is a great time to buy! I will be posting PayPal buttons soon, so you can make your purchases easily and with confidence!

Antler baskets are great for a rustic or cabin accessory or even for use in a contemporary room setting! A decorator’s dream and customer’s delight.

All antlers were legally obtained and baskets were made using naturally shed antlers as well as harvested antlers.

Weaving materials are rattan reed, supplemented with many natural harvested materials from my 120 acre farm in Northern Minnesota. 

I just wrote another article for eHow.com called
How to Identify Woven Chair Seat Patterns

It describes the differences between hand chair caning, spline chair caning, natural rush, paper fibre rush and splints.

Please take a look, rate it and post your comments!

You can also click on the eHow.com widget on the right sidebar here to see more of my eHow.com articles. Thanks!

I just found out about a terrific fiber arts (including basketry) exhibition in Duluth, Georgia and posted it to the Events Calendar for September. But here’s the info and the link so you can have an advanced peek:

NEW!~~September 15 – October 16, 2009~~NEW!

“Fiber Artistry – Journey of the Imagination” Exhibition
Presented by The Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild, GA
Jacqueline Casey Hudgen Center
400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Bldg 300, Duluth, GA

http://chgweb.com/index.html

Here are some pictures of Rhonda Amundson last August as she was taking a bee skep class here at my studio in Angora, MN. We had a great time and didn’t she do a wonderful job on her first attempt?

I’ll be posting new class dates as they are scheduled for 2010 on the
Cathryn’s Classes page. Stay Tuned!       Click images to enlarge.

Please welcome the newest addition to the Furniture Repair Directory in the Seatweaving section, Sugar Valley Chair Caning.

Located in Canton, Georgia, owner and chair caner Doris Babcock will repair and restore just about any type of chair seat design project you may have.

Give her a shout today and tell her you found her through her ad on WickerWoman.com!

You know that old adage, “Make hay while the sun shines?” well that’s what I’ve been doing for about the last week and a half, well, sort of anyway.

I’ve been gathering and drying oat and barley straw for bee skeps and cattail leaves for rush seatweaving for next year’s classes.

The temperatures have been great, except for a couple days of rain, so the gathering has been all consuming for me. Have to gather all the barley and oats that I can before the farmer cuts it all down and uses the combine on it. Been taking off the seed heads and drying them all in the sun.

And the cattails need to be gathered now just after the tips have turned brown, but before any frost sets in that destroys it. After they are dried, they can be stored for months until needed for hand-twisted rush chair seats.

See the Articles tab on the left sidebar for more information about gathering and processing cattail leaves.

Remember this wonderful picture of a chair caning professional in the 1800s?

A new page has recently been added to the site, listed under the Articles tab called, “Chairs to Mend,” that you might find interesting.

On the new page is a children’s nursery rhyme about chair mending and an article on the chair caning professionals for you to enjoy.

“Chairs to Mend” is a magazine article written in the 1800s by Alexander Wainwright. It’s about the professional chair caning menders and the marketing techniques they used to get work back then!

http://www.wickerwoman.com/articles/chairs-to-mend