Rattan poles.....thousands of' 'em!

It's been a funny few weeks, by that I mean funny in an odd way, not funny haha sadly!

We knew there were two important tasks we had been putting off that could wait not longer. First was restoring the woodwork and cab on Bernard our trusty old Bedford horsebox and the second was to sort, cut and bundle a mountain of raw rattan poles into more sensible and manageable sizes.

As luck would have it the weather has been okay for the past few weekends, so in between the odd shower we donned masks, ladders and sanders then threw ourselves at the mammoth task of horsebox restoration. Bernard is 10'6" tall and 19' long, so to say it's a big job washing and sanding that lot is a severe understatement. Meanwhile we had phoned the mechanic to ask him if he could check Bernard over for his annual "plating" test, thinking that we had plenty of time as we don't need to use him until the end of August. So imagine our shock when the mechanic told us that we'd better get him down to his yard asap as the testing station was already fully booked until, (you've guessed it) the end of August!

So panic ensued, pressure applied. We worked away madly for three solid weekends and then took the truck to the mechanics yard. We're all keeping our fingers crossed now that we can get a cancellation at the local testing station, otherwise it will be a 40 mile plus trip each way to the next nearest one!

So this is what he looked like when he went to the mechanic. Woodwork almost finished and the cab only partly started. Ooooh I hope we can get him tested and back home soon, still lots to do.

So once the truck panic was over, we girded our loins for sorting out the rattan pole problem. Last Wednesday, the two of us plus two friends (probably now ex-friends) set about the task. I hate to admit it, but the old adage "out of sight is out of mind" is so true. We had genuinely forgotten just how much rattan we have. At first we were optimistic that we could achieve loads in one day, but by the end of a VERY long shift, it was obvious that the job was going to take at least another week of concerted effort. This was the mountain we were looking at sorting and is only about a third of the total.

And here we are trying to decide where to start.

So we were a bit worse for wear after that lot and decided to have a gentler time this weekend. We've pottered about gardening and doing nice, quiet things like............

......rescuing lost frogs from the middle of the kitchen floor. Don't ask.....I have no idea how he came to be there suspiciously covered in fluff from the tumble drier!

I wonder what next week will bring?

Is it Summer?

At last it seems we have some sunny weather although the wind still has that northerly chill to it. We've been very quiet on the blogging front for a long time, mainly because so much has been going on that finding time to sit and write has been difficult. So today a chance to do a quick catch up!

Our Goddaughter came to stay with us for a few days last month and we had a lovely time. She is French and determined to speak English as well as her Mum, (who speaks English fluently). So while she was staying with us we arranged for her to spend time at the local infants school as a volunteer helper. I think the time was enjoyed by all, she played football and helped the children with their crafts to the point where she rubbed a blister on her hand from using the little scissors so often. The teachers told me that she was also very helpful indeed in the French lessons! Such fun.

Meanwhile we have been wading our way through a mountain of work, everything from an experimental woven piece using carbon fibre to reviving a marquetry table top, no opportunities for boredom here.

It is good to be able to work outside again, one of the great joys of being self employed is the freedom to change workplace whenever it suits. It also means that I can watch the local wildlife. We are so lucky, these little creatures breed every year in the bank of the yew hedge. Such a privilege to watch them emerge and then quite frightening when they start to fly!!

The run up to Christmas

Always a busy time of the year one way or another! For us it's the deadline to finish customers furniture in time for a perfect Christmas holiday and the time when our regular customers for materials need to stock up to meet their own deadlines. So all in all we are very much kept on our toes.

The last few Mondays in particular have been very busy on the phone, so much so that sometimes as soon as you put the receiver down, it rings immediately. Doesn't leave a lot of time to weave, but we are getting ahead now.

Some Magistretti seat pads

Quite a few unusual cane chairs

And a few very old and very beautiful rush chairs

Our first order of cane materials has arrived and a second is due here in the next week or so. Hopefully we will have enough to keep everyone going for quite a few months yet. No sign so far of the Indonesian rattan embargo being lifted, but keep your fingers crossed!

So why you can't use ready woven cane panels in an old hand woven chair?

"I'll have some of the cane panelling, it'll be a lot easier to do won't it? My chair is so old it's not worth spending the time or money on hand weaving it, I'll just put a few patches in.....or push the ends of the panel down the holes and glue them in, keep it looking okay for a bit longer, it'll be fine I reckon"

No....... no it won't. Please don't even try.

Why not? Well a hundred and one reasons, but I'll try and put the main ones in order.

Reason 1. Hand woven cane gets its strength from each single strand being woven back and forth across the chair frame stitching up and down through the holes. No glue is needed and eventually when the holes are dry plugged with centre cane you've got a strong but flexible seat. Machine woven panels are not fitted into holes, they need to be stretched into a rout or groove around the frame perimeter which is then lined with glue and a centre cane filet is hammered in over the top to fill the groove. It's strong and can't pull out when it's fitted like this. The two attachment methods are very different.

Reason 2. Pre-woven panelling more than likely won't fit hand drilled frame holes. Machine woven panels are just that - machine woven, they are more accurately spaced than any hand woven chair could ever be. The Victorians, Edwardians etc. didn't always use a ruler when they drilled the holes around the perimeter of a cane chair seat, they often had a template set up by the designer or manufacturer that would create the gauge and design of weave that they wanted that would fit well with their desired overall effect.

Reason 3. If by luck you did manage to get a pre-woven panel to fit into hand drilled holes, then what's to stop it from pulling out the minute someone sits on it? Nothing. I've seen chairs where this has been done and the only thing that was holding the cane in place was a bit of glue on the hole plugging pegs. Now bearing in mind how glossy cane is, it's not going to hold in place for long like that before it goes baggy or worse still gives way leaving the poor soul who sat on it wedged into an open seat frame - not a good thing to happen.

Reason 4. If you're trying to patch an old panel with bits of pre-woven, then the new cane will stick out like a sore thumb. New cane is creamy beige, old cane gets darker with time, so unless you're prepared to do a lot of careful colour matching, forget it. Old cane has usually broken because it's come to the end of its life, it's dried out, become brittle. There's nothing that can be done about this apart from replacement and if you start to try and weave wonderfully supple new cane through the old stuff, you will find the breaks in the old stuff spreading further and further into the panel making more and more work for you.

So what's the answer? Well some would advocate adapting the hand woven chair to take panelling by filling the holes and putting in a rout instead. Sounds great, except that doing this will take about half of the structural wood out of the frame in a crucial spot. You see, seats that are intended to have panelling fitted have the groove cut at least 3/4" away from the edge of a good chunky frame, the holes for hand weaving are generally much closer to the inner edge of a much finer more delicate frame, so if you rout a groove between them....crack....potentially the inner bit of wood can break off. Great Aunt Mildred could find herself once again wedged into an empty seat frame, but this time with some painfully located splinters!

It's up to you, but if you'll take my advice don't waste your precious time trying to "cheat" it really is a false economy. If you love your chair, then have a go at re-weaving it by hand with a cane seat kit or similar, or ask a professional. If neither of these things are possible just now, put the chair in a dry attic, shed, garage....wherever until you can do the repair, or sell it to someone who wants a project or is keen to breathe new life into something beautiful.

For lots more information please look at our websites at formerglory.co.uk or seatweavingsupplies.co.uk

Garden gherkin and a post box

We've had a lot of work to do over the past few weeks. Most of it has been rush work of one sort or another, quite a few Magistretti Carimate seats and various handsome antique armchairs. It is satisfying to see them all lined up when they're finished waiting to go home and ready for another few decades of service.

But I still have to find some time to do a bit of exploring, some experimentation. I had a deadline to come up with a few design ideas for a local magazine, so it gave me a brilliant reason to spend time making a few things that we needed. First was a post box. We couldn't bring ourselves to make a letterbox hole in our new front door, we liked it better without one, so the only option was to buy a post box. I looked around at loads, but couldn't find anything that would be just right, so I made one and here it is.

Not necessarily everyone's cup of tea I know, but it's made out of outdoor quality synthetic materials and is big enough to take the largest of envelopes. I was chuffed when the postman used it the first morning after I put it in place!

The second thing we needed was a protective cover for our herb "bag". The local family of sparrows have taken a real shine to our plants especially the chard, they were coming in like little vultures and eating the lot even though it was right under the kitchen window - little beggars!

So I built a "garden gherkin" as a framework to cover with bird mesh.

It works a treat.

A new week

Well Mum in Law's funeral took place on Wednesday, so needless to say that this week has been topsy turvy. But a new week has dawned now and we are back to work with a vengeance. Life has to go on.

We spent what turned out to be a lovely sunny, warm weekend sorting out rattan again. We've got tons of the stuff. Everything from 32cm diameter Tohiti to fine 2mm golden Palembang. The problem is that most of it is over 15 feet long and our courier will only deliver parcels measuring up to 10 feet. Going to have to get our thinking caps on and work out what quantities we can retail! This is just a very small sample of what we have - the "overspill" in the horsebox yesterday morning before we sorted through it all....

We took most of it to the yard where there are now two very full containers!

I've bought some odd lengths of various poles home to the workshop so that I can experiment, a local journalist has asked me to do some bits for an outdoor feature in a magazine this August - could be fun!

Beekeepers, do you want to make a skep?

Bank holidays are never long enough are they?! Ho hum.

The pole pile sort out continues but we also have some other new materials to add to our ever growing arsenal, we have "D" profile centre cane wrapping and copious quantities of "B" grade 6mm wide lapping. The "D" profile is perfect for conservatory repairs, so flexible and it will take a colour. The 6mm glossy lapping is also good for conservatory repairs, but most of the time we supply it to beekeepers for making skeps.

A skep is the traditional housing for bees and the shape of them as a symbol is still used on millions of honey pots. Skeps are hand made from straw tightly coiled round and round then stitched together into a bell shape. There was a time when they could be seen everywhere until the angular wooden hives all but replaced them as favourites with the beekeepers. There is something quaint about the image, but in truth, skeps are liked by bees and if they're looked after well, can go on being used for decades. Being so lighweight and therefore easy to carry they're also perfect for catching swarms. I found this terrific 1970's film of a bee farm in Germany who were still using skeps for their bees, (complete with clear diction from a VERY English narrator!);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrehDfkazO0&feature=related

Sorry it's 14 minutes long but honestly it's fascinating stuff, stick with it! If after watching this you fancy trying your hand at making a skep give us a call. The 6mm glossy cane is perfect for stitching the coils and 1/2 kilo hanks are half price while stocks last - only £8, or if you've got millions of bees, you could make hundreds of skeps with a kilo of 6mm lapping for only £15. Just add straw!

Manua, Tohiti and Malacca rattan, how many poles would you like?

If anyone was curious about our whereabouts yesterday, we were absent because an order arrived - several tonnes of it. It had to be fork lifted from a huge curtainsider articulated lorry then manhandled bundle by bundle into the store.

This is Mr. FG standing in front of one "pole mountain", there are another four like this one. Tohiti skin off and on, Manau in all dimensions and some beautiful Malacca. You name it! Unfortunately today we are suffering the consequences of kidding ourselves on that we are still young and fit enough to hurl a 40+ kilo, 18 foot long bundle over one shoulder and nonchalantly throw it 5 feet in the air to land in perfect neat pile on the rack. The reality is quite different, huffing and puffing whilst fumbling under a random pile of pliable poles that have expertly knitted themselves together, then trying to lift them even to shoulder height and drag them unceremoniously onto the ever growing pile is closer to the mark! I started the day well, first bundle of Manau was properly tangled into the one below. Having manipulated my hands into place under the bundle, Mr FG at the other end of said bundle lifted it two feet into the air - I tried to lift, but the poles were still trapped into the one below, the bundle snapped back taking my left hand with it......Now some of you that know me may remember that I have long fingernails that are so hard they need cutting with toenail clippers, well I've found out that Manau poles do a much better job of trimming my nails than clippers! The falling bundle sheared my middle fingernail off just above the flesh, but the nail on my first finger didn't give way and ripped off a quarter of an inch into the pink fleshy zone below - you know the really painful bit? Blood spurted everywhere as I ran to get first aid, which was a pink plaster and some masking tape courtesy of our friend Keith. I found myself holding the fingernail that came off, what I thought I was going to do with it I have no idea!

Today Mr. FG has bruises, aches and pains in places he didn't even know he had......even his aches have got pains! So this afternoon we do it all again and then over the weekend we will be sorting, labelling and generally getting to grips with the pole pile. Meanwhile the washing machine is on making a vague attempt to remove the thick film of rattan dust that enveloped us completely, we looked like ghosts by the time we got home.

Thanks to Tom for driving the fork lift truck and Thomas for helping us all day - without you we would probably have been in hospital by now!

And so....if you fancy making some garden structures, walking sticks or furniture, give us a shout, we may just be able to help.

Happy days!!

A sunny end to March

It has been a glorious week, temperatures in the late teens and early twenty degrees centigrade - fantastic! It meant that we could empty the store shed and sort everything out without worrying about things getting wet. Well this was the scene on day one.

And this is only half of it! All of these chairs need work, some more than others, but it was so good to be able to get them all out and check them over before cleaning and re-stacking them in the now much tidier shed.

We need more space....again! One day was spent doing the aforementioned shed reorganisation, another day, (the hottest of the week) was spent sorting out our other lock up store at our friends yard. I was burning rubbish until 4pm, oh boy was it hot! I couldn't wait to jump in the bath when I got home. Never mind, we now have one very clean store.

So why the frantic activity you may ask? Well we have some materials arriving next week....

This is one stack, there is another! More details about this lot later in the week, but a little bird tells me it may SNOW on Wednesday!

It must be Friday

Why? Why does it always have to happen on a Friday?

This was the sight that greeted us at 10am this morning, another 300 kilos of materials to manhandle into the store. Needless to say that warmed us up, although as it is already 11 degrees today, (unseasonably hot) warming up wasn't really a problem in the first place! Two cups of tea later I'm beginning to feel a little bit better.

But the very best news is......we've just finished the last of the undamaged chapel chairs - phew.

Out of Africa

A very unusual patient! This chair has just arrived in the workshop.

It's an African chieftain chair and both arm uprights have this same head carved on the top.....he looks a bit grumpy! The weave on the seat is something very different, it is a fairly standard close weave in a fine cord but it is finished off with a crocheted edge. That will take me back to my childhood, I haven't done any crocheting for years, but I'll enjoy it - memories of my Grandmother teaching me when I was 7 or so.

Chapel chair countdown

Thirty five finished........only nineteen more to do. Here are the finished ones so far:

 

My hands are beginning to ache now, but then that's probably as much due to the cold and damp as the rush weaving. I said in a much earlier post that these chairs come from a very special location.....well if you were watching Country Tracks on BBC this morning as I was, then you will have seen this beautiful place!?! http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00k143b/Country_Tracks_Cornwall_Coast/

I'm also pushing ahead with the Cassina chairs, slowly and laboriously, it's the only way to do them.

This weaving is also hard on the hands, so I'm doing myself no favours I guess! 

Snow and panier prototypes

First snow of the year and it confused our resident blackbird "Mrs B", she really struggled to separate the bread from the snow yesterday.

It has been so cold and damp, but we soon warmed up when we had to move a massive pile of boxes into the store, a delivery of weaving materials weighing in at just under a ton. Hard work - so why does it always seems to happen on a Friday when you're already worn out?

Had a lovely afternoon working with a student from Bournemouth Uni who is entering her work into a competition in New Zealand. She wanted to make a pair of crinoline paniers for her design, so she made a mini prototype.

She left with an armful of cane to make the full size version. I hope she wins the competition, if it was based on enthusiasm and commitment she'd win hands down! It's great to see such creativity, I'll keep you posted on how she gets on.

A weekend with Gio Ponti

Well not quite...but a weekend with chairs designed by Gio Ponti way back in 1957 that are still in production today, see the website here.

These chairs are known as the "superleggera" or "super light" design - and super light is no exaggeration believe me! They are truly amazing, you can lift them with one finger, the ash frame is so slender.... they're a kind of delicate but strong ballerina of the chair world.

My job as ever is to replace the seats, not an easy task, but I thought my fellow chair seat weavers out there might appreciate a photo "anatomy" of the process needed to replace these awkward little blighters! It made me smile when I read on the Cassina web page that the seats are "india cane", well I don't know about India but they're definitely cane! So firstly here's the seat before work started.

 Notice the "knotted" edge around the frame and the rush style covering of the corners, so more investigation needed....

Wow that's neatly done, so where are all of the cane ends?

Ha, neatly tucked into the reed cane liner and then overwrapped by the next cane along. So what about those rush type corners?

Oooh, clever! So having taken it all apart guess what I was doing for the rest of the weekend? Well, it makes a change from rushing chapel chairs!

Nearly famous....!

Well......not quite, but our materials may be near to other people who are famous!

Every now and again we'll have one of those really interesting phone calls, a designer, museum or theatre company wanting to create something a bit different using our materials. In the past we've supplied advice and all sorts of materials to be used by the West End and Covent Garden Theatres, snazzy London restaurants and even on the catwalk. We once supplied some basketmaking cane for a scene in "The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin" TV programme, (the poor long suffering wife of Reggie was trying to save money by restoring some chairs in one episode.)

Well today it was a film company that phoned, but not just any film company, the makers of the new Bond movie. Yes, our materials will be used on the set of the new movie. Oh well I thought it was exciting anyway........ at least it's a kind of brush with fame - about the closest we'll ever get, (thankfully)!

So a word of the week for a change.

Deluded - To mislead the mind or judgment, to mock or frustrate hopes and aims.

Just about sums it up I think!

A boot sale find

We often wander around the boot sale part of our local market at the weekend but rarely find anything to buy, after all we are trying to clear the house out, not add yet more!!

But this weekend I did find a little something.

 

It's a hand turned shallow dish made from mahogany. I brought it home, cleaned it up and then drilled a series of holes around the lip so that I could use it as a basket base. Using some left over bits of weaving material, this is the result.

A pot holder full of Spring colours. I bought a second bigger platter too, but there wasn't enough time left on Sunday to work on that one because we had the extra sad task of dismantling poor Sybil's outdoor run - it was too painful to see it every day, we found ourselves looking for her inside.....

Vico Magistretti and the countdown to Christmas

Not long to go now before the holidays. As usual we are trying to clear the decks so that we can bring the dining room back into commission for Christmas Day. Because it hardly gets used during the rest of the year it tends to be the dumping ground for surplus stuff, so it's generally at this time that we have to do a clear out. This year we have a bit more than normal stored in there, mainly due to having to clear Mother-in-law's house. But now that the house has been sold, the bits that are left can't multiply, (I hope) so once we find new homes for these last few bits and pieces - that's that!

On the work front we have a few rush seats to weave and return to their owners before next week, all other restoration will start again in the New Year. We're just about to finish the last drop-in pad of a set of three for some Vico Magistretti Carimate chairs, this time using "reel rush", a pre-twisted natural material. We see a lot of these, most of the earlier dining sets dating from the 60's seem to have been woven traditionally using hand twisted rush, perhaps these were the first chairs made by Cassini. Later versions from the late 70's onwards have more varied seat materials. The set that we are restoring at the moment are from this sort of period and were originally woven using pre-twisted natural material, so we are replacing them "like for like". The original seats had only just worn out, so I guess it proves that the pre-twisted material does have a good long lifespan and also that it has been around a lot longer than people imagine. Here's a picture of the old "reel rush" on the underside of the final seat pad we're working on. You can see around the edge where the frame protects it that the material was very green to begin with.

For comparison, here's a picture of the two newly woven pads alongside the old one. It'll be a few years before the new seating fades to the muted golden colour of the old one.

I like them when they're green.

Some of our customers projects

It's been a busy weekend but all good fun, we had lots of visitors and some precious time out visiting a local market and Poole Quay with our family - the weather was perfect, Poole was shimmering in the late Autumn sunshine. We took a drive around Sandbanks, the famously expensive area of Poole where a sandy promontory stretches out into the beautiful bay. I even managed to find some Dorset "hag" stones on the beach, I have plans for these - have a guess!

But now it's back to the normal working week, lots of Wegner wishbone chairs, I'll post up more about those in the next few days.

We've also been working on our websites and Facebook page, in future I will try and post more regular updates about materials and any special Christmas gifty items we are working on, (yes Christmas is coming....oooh no!) One new page I'm working on will be for customer projects on the Seat Weaving Supplies website. We've been collecting together photos and info about special projects that some of our customers have worked on using our materials. One of those featured will be Mike Abbott's green wood chair making courses. Here's a preview of the work that some of his students have created:

Black Danish cord looks lovely on greenwood chairs! Great work. There will be all sorts of projects on the new webpage,we love to see just how creative people are and to show off their work, I'll let you know when the page is online.

Talking of artistic folk...please take a moment out to look at Wendy's site for her "Handmade Monday" feature that encourages creative people. And while you're there, please read her post and please, if you can, support her in her quest to help sufferers of MS. It's such a cruel and unpredictable disease that I'm sure will have touched most peoples lives in some way at some point.

It makes us appreciate just how lucky we are, enjoy every day folks.

Getting ready for the Woodfair at Larmer Tree.

Today is Wednesday and we will be at the Cranborne Chase Woodfair at Larmer Tree Gardens on Saturday - pretty straightforward stuff you'd think - except as I sit here and type, Bernard the horsebox, a crucial part of our stand display has once again failed his annual "plating" test (MOT). He is currently sitting in a commercial workshop awaiting a retest. Now this may or may not happen by Saturday and he may or may not pass the test ....panic ....me .....noooo!

Meanwhile the show preparations and client work continue. We finished the seat of the "Denims" stool yesterday evening, decided to go mad with mixed media and added in some French style hand wrapped coils of denim blue straw to the rushwork. I'm quite pleased with it, but my other half's jury is out!

Well you've got to admit it's something a bit different!! We've also made a much simpler version without the extra "leg". I've got to own up and say that making this has been fun and a challenge that I've really enjoyed. Persuading a few bent branches to hold together in a frame that can support a seat top is like doing a jigsaw puzzle that has some very oddly shaped pieces and without a photo of the finished thing.

Yes.....it was fun!

Is there anybody out there that has 6500 chairs for re-caning??

We've just had a delivery of rattan materials, enough to reweave about 6500 average bedroom chairs. The order arrived this morning, just as the first couple of customers were leaving and another set arrived, so needless to say today has been bedlam - lorries, cars and people everywhere!

This is what that quantity of materials looks like.

Then we had to move all of this lot from the delivery van into the store - don't you just love Fridays!