Some Chair Repair

We bought this pretty little side chair from a country auction house on our way back from dropping our son at summer camp several summers back. The wicker seat soon needed to be replaced. A couple of years ago in a burst of pre-Passover energy, I attempted to re-cane the chair. While doing the re-caning I soon realized why it is so expensive to have chairs re-caned. my not terribly good job began to fall apart.

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A recent sleepless night yielded a solution to the problem of what to do about the pretty little chair. I am now the owner of lots of spools of ribbon. I decided to weave a new seat out of ribbon.

It was a few hours of work, but it was far less hard on the hands than the cane. The ribbon does not have to be soaked in warm water to become flexible.

I was trying to figure out where I had gotten the idea of using ribbon to weave a seat and I guess it must be Shaker chairs.

I was so inspired by my success that I decided to try my hand on another chair that was in need of help.

I had bought this chair on Craigslist a few years back. The caning was already a bit saggy. despite several fixes, it was time to do a more serious repair.

First I cut away all of the cane.

Then I began weaving. I used a different weaving pattern than on the previous chair.I switched colors to amuse myself as I worked.

After a couple of hours, I ended up with this.

A chair strong enough to sit on.

Well, if this improvised bit of craftsmanship isn't impressive enough for you here are some details of a townhouse pair I passed yesterday just a bit downtown from my house.

It is so nice to see the level of workmanship possible back in the days when labor was cheap.

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sarah in nyc

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