This weekend I decided that Carpel Tunnel Syndrome wasn't going to stop me from caning. I had 4 days to work as we had MLK Day on Monday and I had taken Friday to wait for repairmen to come work on our heat and our gas fireplace.
Kimberly's hairdresser had given her a couple of chairs for me to do, so it was time to get back to it. The first chair I did was a rush seat, which was what brought on my CTS in the first place. I set up in our bedroom with a space heater as the garage was way too cold to work in that morning.
It turned out pretty well.
The next chair I worked on was a rocking chair a co-worker had asked me to put a flat reed seat in. It came out to 41 strands in the warp. Odd numbers I like as that means I can do a very effective diamond by dividing the seat into quadrants. This also meant I could do a pattern of 4 which came out very nicely.
Saturday was much warmer. I was able to set up in the den. Our gas fireplace was working by then so it was nice and warm. I soon knocked out a small pressed cane seat.
Then there was a chair with a pressed cane seat and back. The back was OK, but the seat had to be replaced. I'm not good at matching new cane to old, so I'm waiting for the owner to decide the next step.
I had run out of work in my garage, so I had to run to my storage to pick up some more. I got 6 pressed cane seats and two open weave, plus a porch rocker in rush. That should keep me busy for a while.
When I got them back home I cut out one of the open work ones and started on it. It was a square seat with 56 holes in medium 3.0 mm cane.
I didn't manage to finish it Saturday night, but early Sunday it was done and I started on the other. It was a round seat in fine 2.5 mm cane with 76 holes. It was not well drilled and I should have used one grade finer cane on it as the strands ended up being slightly too close together. Added to that the fact that the cane wasn't the highest quality and it tended to break while being woven...
I worked on it Sunday until I got frustrated with it. Then I cut out the 6 pressed cane seats (they came out fairly easily) before the Conference football games started. Then it was time to watch some football! What a shame my Atlanta Falcons weren't in it this year.
I worked on that darn seat most of MLK day and finished it after work on Tuesday night.
Way too long! Hopefully the pressed cane will cooperate.
