SEAT WEAVING–WITHSTANDING THE TEST OF TIME

Tags

Cathryn Peters, Danish Cord, Hand Caning, Rush, seat weaving, spint, Test of Time, Wicker Woman

Seat Weaving – One name takes on so many forms down through the ages, examples are Hand Caning, Pressed Caning, Splint Bottoms, Rush Bottoms, Shaker Tape, Danish Cord. Though it is interesting to note as a Seat Weaver, the most common term applied to seat weaving is to call everything  Caning. Generally speaking when you are contacted by a customer the first words out, I have a chair to be caned! It is only minutes into the conversation the you quickly determine that the chair in question could not be further from caning, but instead it is Rush.

It is interesting to note also that Seat Weaving in all of its various forms has literally be practiced for thousands of years, of course with refinements made to the process over the year. Seat Weaving has withstood the test of time! No matter what century you have been in there have always been chairs with woven bottoms, even in todays mechanized, computer oriented and contemporary world, where people want instant gratification of everything they are doing, there is the Seat Weaver, who does his age old art by hand without the aid of computers or machines.

One thing for certain, that most chairs, some hundreds of years old , built by craftsman that lovingly set out to build chairs that often times have out lived their creators by hundreds of years. Sometimes relegated to attics, barns, outbuildings and basements for years to come until one day, someone looks at their handcrafted beauty and decided a new bottom needs to be woven so that this work of art can live once again.

Today we are in tough economic times,  much is made of the “Green Movement” and “Recycling” or even “Saving a Tree” Since 90% of all chairs are made of wood from a tree, does it not make more sense  to take and breath new life into that tree that was fallen hundreds of years ago, rather than to cut down a new tree, which in many, but not all cases today made so cheaply that it probably will not see the next century?

The age old problem that relegated many of these chairs to attics and barns still exists with us today, a shortage of seat weavers, hand caners and rush workers. I fear in todays fast paced, mechanized and instant gratification society that the “Art of Seat Weaving” will be a lost art.

It is just a shame that so many beautiful works of art from long past artisans and craftsman are left to decay away after having withstood the test of time for hundreds of years. 

I would implore anyone that preaches Recycling, Green Movement, and Saving a Tree to stop and look in shops, and at home for what they can do to practice what they preach “Breath New Life into an Old Chair” for generations to come.

RESOURCES TO REMEMBER

One important resource for finding Seat Weavers for all the various forms of seat weaving is the indispensable website resource that Cathryn Peters has built of the the past 20+ years. www.wickerwoman.com. Cathryn is both Professional  Basket weaver and Seat Weaver. over the years she has built a whole compendium of information dedicated to Seat Weaving, including “The Seat Weaving & Chair Caning  Forum” which you can ask any question on the subject and one of many professional Seat Weaver will respond to your question. Cathryn also has a blog “Weavin’ Wicker Woman” which includes updates and happenings, resources, facts and tips and much more.

One of the most important resources on the Wicker Woman site, it the “National Furniture Repair Directory” and indispensible guide to finding Seat Weavers and Chair Caners from across the country.

If you are need of any information on Seat Weaving or Seat Weavers in your area look no further, there is no better website out there and I have just listed a few links from her website, the site is filled with so much more information, please stop by, the Wicker Woman site is a learning experience in itself.

FLYING CHERRY ROCKER!!

Tags

Bungee-Cords, Cherry, Danish Cord, Doors, God, God's-Will, Hand Caning, Hand-Caned, Lemonaide, Lemons, Positive, Prayer, Pressed Cane, rocker, Rush, Splint, Windows

 

The Flying Rocker

 

This Saturday on the way to the farmers market, I was on the road early in the morning all by myself, when in the rear view mirror, I happened to hear a snap, and look there goes a flying hand caned rocker, it used to be a very nice cherry rocker that was given to me.

Well I could have wasted all kinds energy getting mad and upset, but hey, what was the use, all the getting upset would not reverse time! The poor rocker would have been sent to ICU had it been a person. It suffered a major broken rocker, it poor little finial had been decapitated on the left side of the back, it had scratches and bruises, but the seat was totally intact!!

So you have to ask your self what now? Firewood? Of course not, it could be seen as a sign sent from God with a useful purpose in mind that I have actually prayed for over the past several years. Say what? You Say how can this be a good thing?

When Life Gives You Lemons – Make Lemonade  or God Never Shuts a Door that He Does Not Open a Window!

Over the years, I will come home from the market on a Sat. afternoon to find poor Orphaned chairs left at my doorstep by well meaning friends and family that passed by a yard sale and found old chairs that have not had bottoms in for years, well people at the sales usually do not want to drag them back in the house and will give them away.

I tell you some have been nice, while others just need prayers and warm wood stove to go to. However I cannot bring myself to get rid of the ones that are on the edge of ify, So several years ago I thought that I would like to take and weave the various styles of seat weaving in the chairs and then take and saw off the back and legs, and have my sample seats to hang up at the market and shows, there was just one small problem!! The most sought after seat, Hand Caned, is harder to come by in a chair in total despair!!

For years I have thought about just take one and sawing off the legs and back, but just could not bring myself to do it!! All the others I have chairs set aside for, Rush, Splint, Pressed Cane, even a set of deep artists stretchers to do a Danish Cord Seat, but no hand caning. Well don’t you see, I guess God is telling me that it is time to quit thinking about doing and do it, if I cannot seem to do the dirty work of cutting up a chair, then He will give me the chair to do, and He Did!!!

So often in Life we get mad, upset and fly off the handle, however when you stop to think did this make us feel more positive about the situation? No of course Not,it  did not do anything, the best way to look at a situation like this is now what, how can I turn this bad situation around into something that is helpful to me as well as others. Life is way to short to wander through it in a furious and upset state, sometime situations are unrepairable, we just have to look at it, and let go, and guess what life goes on from there it always does.

I was also thankful, I was on the road all alone, when the bungee snapped and the rocker when flying (looked like the scene from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy is in the cyclone!! This situation could have much worse had there been a car behind me, everything was set in perfect time to God’s Will.

What Is In A Name?

Tags

Caning, Danish Cord, Fiber Rush, Genuine Rush, Hand Caning, Names, seat weaving, Splint

What is in a name you ask?

It has amazed me over the years that I have been a “Seat Weaver” how all the various forms of seat weaving has been lumped into one category called “Caning”.

I have tried over the years to educate customers when they come to me and say I have a set of chairs to be caned, knowing that in most cases it is NOT a caned chair; but a Splint Bottom, Rush Bottom, Danish Cord, Sea-grass, or one of many forms of  seat weaving, sometimes I have gotten wicker, and it was referred to as caning.

Usually the customer will tell me it is a hand caned chair, then look at a hand caned chair and say NO, it looks nothing like that, and it turns out to be a rush chair.

It kinds of make one wonder where down the road ages past that all forms of seat weaving became Caning? I wish that I had the answer to share with all of you, however I do not.

Hand Caning- entirely woven by hand, to form the little octagonal hole pattern that becomes the seat, also known as the 7 step pattern

Pressed or Sheet Caning- Comes in a sheet form, is soaked and cut to size, then placed over top of a groove or channel cut into the chair seat, which is held in place by a reed spline. This process is much like replacing a window screen.

Genuine Rush or Fiber Rush- commonly described as being woven of a rope like material, which forms what looks like four envelope flaps with points meeting in the center.

Fiber Rush is a tightly twisted and in most cases a brown heavy kraft brown paper.

Genuine Rush- Is made from bulrushes or cattail leaves, the leaves are gathered and the rope is made entirely by hand as you weave the seat, this form of rush is very labor intensive and usually reserved for museum quality chairs.

Splint- Usually woven in a 3/3 herringbone twill pattern, sometimes 2/2 twill herringbone twill pattern, or a basket weave pattern, the latter two are more time consuming as the weave is much tighter and takes longer to pack the rows together.Splint can come in many forms, the most common today is reed splint, Oak and Hickory, here the latter two in some cases is cost prohibitive to customers as the cost is higher due to the splints being made from the tree, with a draw knife and leather chaps to split out the splints to ready for weaving.

Danish Cord- This is common in Danish Modern Furniture, again like Fiber Rush, it is a twisted paper only  made in Denmark, unlike fiber rush, it is usually finer and much harder in texture, also it is white or off white in color.

The world of “Seat Weaving” is much more complex than just caning,  there are many different style of seat weaving and all have individual names, and very different weaving styles.

I will note here that most customers look and say I never knew, so here I have tried to explain the various forms in hopes you will look at your chairs in a whole new light.

It is my aim soon to post an article with pictures of all the various forms of “Seat Weaving ” to give you a better idea of what all of this is about.

Danish Cord Chairs

Tags

3 ply, Chairs, Cord, Danish, Danish Chairs, Danish Cord, Danish L Nails, Fiber Rush, rope, Seats, twisted paper

This week I finished a set of Danish Cord Chairs made by the Moller Company in Denmark. These were beautiful Cherry Chairs made in the 1960′s. The Danish Cord on the old seats had all been destroyed by cats clawing on them, what you are looking at here are the beautiful new woven seats.

Danish Cord is a very strong 3 ply twisted paper rope, even though Fiber Rush is used on many chairs, and is strong in its own right, Danish Cord, has a beauty and strength all it own. Plus the techniques used to weave the seats are entirely different from one another.

Danish Cord wraps around a series of “Danish L Nails” which are on the under side of the chair frame usually some where around 72-80 nails, on which the cording is wrapped around.

You will be able to tell I am new to blogging with this post, there are several close ups that I wanted to post, but have no idea how to rotate the pictures, so that you don’t have to lay on your sides to see them correctly.so for now, this is the only picture, there will be more to come though.