Gallery Of Miscellaneous Rewoven Items
On this page we mainly feature the restoration of three Toddler rockers, one woven with binder cane and the other two with seagrass. These were all expensive restoration jobs. You might wonder, why spend the money? Usually there are some family connections that justify the expense. But even if not, little rockers like these are not found a dime a dozen at every corner store. They are worth investing in!
Below the rockers we display a few items with new machine cane seats. They are illustrative even though not impressive.
It is easy to see in the photo to the left, that much of the left arm and part of the right arm have the binder cane wraps missing. There are also sections on the legs and the cross members below the seat which are missing their wraps. The photo below displays the problems on the seat more clearly. Numerous sections of cane are missing there as well.
The challenge of this project was not simply replacing the missing binder cane. Binder cane comes in its natural pale amber color only. The black color has been added. Painting cane black, then weaving with it is difficult, because the paint tends to chip off. The intensity and sheen needed cannot be obtained with dyes. Adding the black after weaving is problematic in that it takes a very steady hand to keep the black on the intended strands only, not bleeding over onto the surrounding strands. How would you do this if you were faced with the challenge? We combined pre painting the strands before weaving, then touching them up afterwards. It worked well.
The three photos here illustrate a sampling of the many uses of machine cane, a canoe seat, a double seated bench, and a set of oak dining chairs.