Caning a Chair

One of my favorite parts of our trip to Anderson was caning a chair with my Aunt Linda. Linda and Eddie Ray make baskets and chairs all the time and when Linda offered to teach me how - I jumped at the chance. Strangely enough my Papa has a stack of antique chair frames in the back of his barn so all I had to do was show up ready to learn. I see old chairs without seats at antique stores (read: old junk stores) all the time so I'm thrilled to finally know how to fix them. I hope to eventually do three more matching chairs and have a full set for my dining room. Linda and I started out working alone but by the end Marina, Aslinn, Eddie Ray and Tyler were all helping or at least entertaining us in some way (Tyler, put that gun down!). It was the best!!

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Linda starts out by wetting the reeds.

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Linda and I wrap the first section of chair, staple the reeds to make them long enough and pin the end to the side of the chair. My natural instinct would tell me to wrap these tightly but Linda taught me to leave them loose and "bouncy" to save room for weaving.

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Weaving in the beginning is so easy...


but weaving towards the end is tough!

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Isn't that pattern beautiful?

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My finished chair!!

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It's these types of experiences with my family that I will never forgot! I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful family! Linda is going to get me a some literature on how to make these chairs at home and I'm also going to try making some with fabric to see how those will look! I'll be sure and post more as I make them! Hope everyone is having a wonderful day. Stay tuned for baby pictures coming up after lunch.