Spurgeon Chair Caning & Seat Weaving

02/07/2020

I just finished installing new seats in these six li'l antique beauties, glued and clamped a couple of loose joints, tightened all loose screws, and rubbed some restorative into the dry and thirsty wood. They've gone back to their owners now who are quite pleased! The owners tell me they bought them 30 years ago and I could tell this wasn't the first time the seats were replaced and this wasn't done by the current owners.

01/27/2020

Well, I've been a busy boy...just finished re-caning five chairs for three different clients...and now getting to work on the next set of six brought to me. Suddenly business is booming!

12/25/2019

This is what I made for family for Christmas this year...sets of six...cane webbing stretched onto 4" embroidery hoops...can be used as coasters or hung on the Christmas tree as ornaments...or both...just don't set your beverage on the coaster as it hangs on the tree or it could prove messy...lol...

09/17/2019

Before and after. I just finished this chair for an elderly client, a delightful woman. She told me it was the last thing she had that belonged to her mama and she wanted to have it restored, a chair her mama bought at a farm sale for $3 when she was quite young. After getting the old seat out, I contacted her and warned her that the wood was beginning to split between the holes and since the wood is pine (a soft wood) this trend was likely to continue. She told me to cane it anyway, that she would just keep it in her bedroom as an accent piece, that it wouldn't be sat upon...just wanted her mama's chair restored. So, I pushed epoxy into the cracks as best I could and caned it. She was thrilled with the end result. It's a pleasure to make a client that happy.

09/08/2019

I finished this chair for a client today. I was quite glad to have it to work on as we were waiting on Hurricane Dorian. It helped keep my mind off the news with the forecast changing every time we blinked our eyes!

08/16/2019

Before and After: This is another old chair given to us, not sure how old. The finish was in horrible shape...cracked and peeling and chipped and faded in places...chair falling apart and needed re-gluing. So, I pulled it apart, sanded it down, and glued it back together. Joan chose the color of paint and had me cane the seat in the daisy chain pattern.

08/10/2019

This is the chair I've just finished, a mahogany Lincoln rocker likely made in the mid-1800's because that's when this style of chair was made. It's named such because it's the same style of rocker in which Abe Lincoln sat when he was assassinated. Cane-bottomed chairs first gained popularity in the 1600's during what's known as the Carolinean Period. These chairs became popular because they were light and airy rather than heavy and upholstered. The cane material actually comes from the rattan plant, the same plant used to make the reed that's used in the weaving of so many baskets today. I'm reminded of the old joke about the young lady who, upon returning home from her vacation in a nudist camp, was asked by a friend what had made the greatest impression on her there. She smiled and replied, "The cane-bottomed chairs!"
Budda boom!
Joan and I will be keeping this chair to perhaps become a family heirloom because it's a valuable antique that was gifted to us by a man who owns a local upholstery shop because he wanted to get rid of it even after I warned him it was a collector's item.
I began this hobby when I was 11 as a kid in Boy Scouts when earning my basketry merit badge and I enjoyed the pastime enough to continue the hobby for over 50 years now. I made decent spending money doing this as a kid, although it's not something that will make anyone wealthy doing because it's so time-consuming, but certainly something one can do as they sit and watch TV anyway. However, even at the low range of the charge rates today, having a chair such as this re-caned would still cost in the neighborhood of $450, but the value of this particular chair in such good condition and properly caned is about 20 times that amount. Unfortunately, most people today will set a chair that needs re-caning at the curb before paying such an expense and without even knowing the value of the antique they're discarding...or they nail a thin piece of plywood across the seat and put a cushion on it without knowing just what they're defacing. As I said, the weaver isn't becoming wealthy when one considers the charge rate versus the time spent, but hand-woven caning isn't something one will get at a bargain price.

05/05/2016

You may also want to visit my website:

http://caneweaver.wix.com/mysite

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05/05/2016

Hand-Woven Cane Patterns

04/28/2016

HOW I STARTED: I learned how to cane chairs and weave flat reed seats when I was a kid getting my Basketry Merit Badge in Boy Scouts, learned from a furniture restorer in my hometown of Columbia, MO. Initially I just learned the traditional weaves in cane and flat reed, then learned from a book how to weave fibre rush. Over the years I picked up on how to replace a cane webbing seat and how to weave Danish cord and Shaker tape in different patterns...herringbone and diamond and figured out how to do an X pattern...and how to cane chairs in seven different patterns. Retired now, I have over 50 years experience and a li'l more free time to spend on this artistic hobby and have learned there are always new and countless different ways to weave seats between the different materials, colors of materials, and patterns. The sky is the limit.

04/28/2016

One can even get creative by dying some strands in the pattern.