Making a Chair Seat
One nice sort of seat for rustic furniture is Fiber rush. Originally, rush seats were woven of cat tails. This must have been immensely difficult, though I’ve never tried it. With cat tails measuring only five or so feet in length, it must have taken a great many and required constant skillful tying of rushes in such a manner as to keep the knots hidden underneath the seat. However, fiber rush is a synthetic cord made of brown paper bag and wound into rope of various diameters. It is available in many lengths (it is often sold by the pound). I get mine from H.H. Perkins online. I find weaving fiber rush satisfying, though your first time you will find it is a real workout for your hands. To show the basics, I will start with a foot stool. The advantage of this is that it is rectangular. Chair seats are often narrower in the back and wider in the front. This requires an extra step, which I will discuss later. For tools you will need a tack hammer, shears or knife, a wooden block (any little scrap approximately 1″x3″x4″ will do), a spring clamp is useful. and a rush shuttle, a fid can also be useful (a fid is just a pointy stick used to pry some space between the rush). Picture 1 shows the foot stool, the rush on the shuttle, and a nice little tack hammer.
- Picture 1
- Picture 2
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- Picture 18
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- Picture 20
When you reach the end of a length of rush you will need to tie a new one on. Wind more rush onto the shuttle and tie a square knot (also known as a reef knot) to join the two lengths (see pictures 13 and 14) . Make sure to join the rush so that the knot will be under the seat and out of view. As the seat begins to fill in it may grow more difficult to pull the shuttle through (see picture 15) and the will come a time when you will have to forgo the shuttle and pull the rush through alone. Unless the seat is square, you will reach a pint when you are no longer working around and around, but simply going front to back or side to side (see picture 16-17). At this point you go over and around the top rail the under and up through the middle of the seat. Then pull the rush tight and come back and over and under and up through the middle again. Keep this up until the gap is filled. At this stage, there is twice the rush in the center that there is one the sides, so it is very important to use the block to pack the center line tight or the sides will be very loosely woven (see pictures 18-20).
Next week I’ll be down again to finish this up. Hope it was helpful. Please write if you have questions. Bear in mind, I will continue this stool next week, along with a description of what to use for a protective coating. I will also explain what to do with non-square seats.