FRIDAY FEATURE–Recently Mindy King, Vice President of The SeatWeavers’ Guild, Inc., taught a splint seat weaving class at Woodcraft in Parkersburg, West Virgina.
The kind folks at Woodcraft made a wonderful video documenting the restoration of “Mammaw’s Rocker” and subsequent seat weaving class. Click above on this blog title to Read More and see the video. Enjoy!
A while back I made a post about weaving with paper fibre rush and the perils of not stuffing the seats with cardboard or something else to protect the strands. http://www.wickerwoman.com/tuesday-tips-paper-rush-weaving.html
I was having problems with my photo editor on the blog that day, so was not able to post the picture of the seat I was describing. So are some pictures and reasons to help you get the idea of how and why to stuff the gussets on a paper rush chair seat.
I used a rasp first to soften the edges of the rails, before doing the weaving and adding the cardboard. Then all I needed to do was to add several layers of cardboard triangles into the gussets or pockets of both the top and bottom of this rush chair seat. Then it’s protected and keeps the rail from breaking the strands when someone sits on the chair seat.
Here’s a picture of the four gussets or pockets on the top side of the rush seat, already stuffed with the cardboard triangles.
And here’s a picture of the bottom, stuffed with the cardboard triangles also. Only one layer of cardboard was needed on both the top and bottom of this chair, since the seat rails were very flat (instead of being made out of round dowels) and the pockets created were rather flat, too.
And here’s the final completed woven paper rush seat on the 1915 Colonial style ladderback arm chair, but before the final finish of varnish was added. Doesn’t that look nice?
Well things have finally settled down enough around here after my trip to the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Franklin, Indiana last month, for me to post some of the pictures we took during my chair caning class.
Chair Caning Class--Paper rush weaving stool
Here’s a picture of the class weaving their “over the rail” diamond wide binding segment of the chair seat weaving two-day class.
Chair caning instruction-wide binding cane
Students working on the paper fibre rush stool
Here’s a class picture with me and the ten students from the first chair caning class held at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking on August 27 & 28, 2011. We had a great time and I hope to teach there again in the future. Thanks for asking me, Marc!
Students and teacher from the first ever chair seat weaving class at MASW 8-2011
Ever have one of those chair caning jobs where you’re working on a hole-to-hole cane rocker that simply won’t stay put when you’re trying to weave the seat? The rocker moves back and forth, back and forth, and is uncooperative, making the weaving task very difficult?
Well, here’s today’s Tuesday Tip for Chair Caning–Take a couple hippo clips or spring clamp and clip one to the end of each rocker to stabilize the rocking chair. Presto! Your job just got a lot easier and at no cost to you!
Hole-to-Hole Chair Caning
April brought two new additions to the National Furniture Repair Directory™ in the Seatweaving section.
Welcome to the two new businesses in the Seatweaving section that are located in California. Tim’s Chair Caning is a returning advertiser from Berkeley and the other business is Sue’s Seat Weaving in Torrence.
So if you are near either of these two chair caning specialists and need some chair caning repair done, be sure to give them a call. And remember too, that you can always ship removable seats to have them rewoven!
I’ve always liked weaving “post and rail” chair seats, ones that have rungs on them, because the materials and weaving patterns to choose from are practically limitless. Here’s just a small sampling of some of the different ways you can treat these marvelous chair seats when you restore them.
post and rail chair frame
Many of the chair frames will be best suited to a particular weaving material and design, but many are interchangeable. For example, the hickory chair below with its rattan reed splint seat, could just as easily been woven with ash or hickory bark splints, too.
Hickory chair with reed splint seat
This mule-ear Southern settin’ chair was woven using Oriental seagrass in a checkerboard pattern, but could just as easily been woven with either hickory bark splints or a wide binding cane in a herringbone pattern.
Mule ear chair with seagrass seat
Here are two chair seats each woven in the typical and traditional rush weaving pattern, but using two different materials; hand-twisted cattail leaf rush and man-made pre-twisted paper fibre rope.
hand twisted cattail leaf rush seat
My first paper rush seat job!
Or you could weave that trapezoidal (wider in the front than in the back), chair seat as in the two samples above, in cotton Shaker tape instead. The weaving pattern is in a checkerboard pattern most of the time, but can also be altered using a herringbone patterns and diamonds. And believe me, you’ll be hard pressed to choose the colors of cotton or wool tapes because they are endless.
Shaker tape footstool
Of course, there are many, many other designs, patterns and materials that can be used on post and rail chair frames, we’ve just scratched the surface here with these few examples. And as you’ve seen they don’t all have to be trapezoidal in shape, either.
The stools, chairs or rockers can also be square, rectangular and even triangular, believe it or not! The sky’s the limit, so experiment around a bit when you reweave your chair seat and if you take your chair to a repair person, be sure to ask them what the possibilities are.
What has your experience been with using different materials on different styles of post and rail chairs? Please leave your comments below and share with me and the readers of this blog.
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Little did I realize that in the six years that my National Furniture Repair Directory has been online, would it have served so many people–customers as well as the advertisers listed there!
Starting with just a handful of chair caners, wicker repair folks, furniture refinishers and upholsterers from the Seatweaving & Chair Caning Forum , we have now grown to 85 listings in the Seatweaving/Chair Caning section alone!
In March of 2004 there were several antique repair directories already set up, but mine was the first and only that focused on primarily the Chair Caning and Wicker Restoration specialists.
Since there was so much cross-over from the specialty sections though, (many chair caners and wicker repair folks were also furniture refinishers or upholsterers), I decided to include those restoration sections also.
Many of my advertisers have been listed with me for all the six years, since March of 2004! And of course a few drop out due to changes in circumstances, and yet several more decide to sign up to take their place, once they see the great benefits of this specialized advertising vehicle!
So, if you are a customer looking for a restoration business to take repair, fix or restore your prized family heirlooms, flea market finds or antiques restored to their former glory, be sure to visit the National Furniture Repair Directory on WickerWoman.com for all your needs! 
And if you are a restoration business in the fields of Seatweaving/Chair Caning, Wicker Repair, Furniture Refinishing, or Upholstery, be sure to sign up by filling out the form and making your payment through the PayPal buttons on the Advertise page of WickerWoman.com!
Hope to see you all soon, it’s been a great pleasure providing this information resource for everyone for so many years!
My good internet friends, Tim and Kim, owners of Former Glory, a seat weaving supply and restoration company located in the United Kingdom now have a brand new blog!
It’s here on Blogger.com and can be found at http://seatweaving.blogspot.com
Be sure to visit their new blog soon, there’s always something interesting that they are posting about! Congrats, guys nice to see you in the blogosphere!
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