Puttin' a seat in the ol' rockin' chair

[Buster's Uncle]

A major part of the fixing up of the Temple of Gramma on Mylochka's part was having a nice deck built - porch sittin' is a major family social activity in the right seasons, to the extent that out front of a Lowe's Hardware a few years ago, Mylochka asked me if she should pick up a couple of the medium-quality rocking chairs they were selling for $100.
 
"No" I told her, reasoning that they would get used all right, but as outdoor furniture with a finite lifespan, it was just too much to pay.  -Well, recently Momma found one that the price was right; a neighbor was going to throw it away.
 

The wicker seat and back were in sad condition and that blue paint would have to go.  I can weave a nice jute seat in a chair - macramé skillz left over from the seventies, and I've done it any number of times before, though nothing so large and not rocking chairs.  The biggest challenge is not having enough rope on hand, and the roll is going to be a pain to work with.  This isn't even much of a skill job - just elbow grease and persistence.

Speaking of which, Mylochka had a lot of prep work in front of her:

-Cutting the seat and back out under Frida's supervision...






And one leg needed gluing back into place - a little wood glue, a rope-and-stick cinch to make up for not having elaborate clampage, and a 24-hour wait, and that was taken care of.


Then an arduous stripping job commenced.




-She's finally gotten it done to her satisfaction and varnished.  I need to take a picture of that before I commence the seat weaving...

[Buster's Uncle]

 
That warped dowel on the left back is going to be a problem when I get to that stage...

[Buster's Uncle]

So, I'm ready to get started.
 

 
Let's see how much of the seat 100 feet of this stuff will cover...

[Rusty Edge]

I was wondering about that curved dowel.  I see that the dogs are supervising.

My dog was supervising cats today. First, the sacred cat started gnawing on some paper on the table. We yelled at it, but it ignored us, naturally. So the dog stood on her hind legs and yelled at the cat until it complied. Then, we came home from shopping with a rotisserie chicken, which summoned the dog and two of the cats by the pure power of fragrance. The dog helpfully volunteered to keep the cats, which were on the kitchen counter by now, from getting too close to the chicken as we were attempting to plate. I rewarded her with some chicken skin.

[Buster's Uncle]

Beginning is easy enough - tie one end and go back and forth doing larksheads at each end.
 

 
I'll take another picture when I've got that done.  -Right now the challenge is handling the roll, which is bulky to fit between the front slats, and becoming a tangled mess.  I don't remember how I handled that part in the old days, aside from I've mostly done it with scrap line a cousin got at work at a furniture mill that had tied up bundles of cotton stuffing, and I tied a lot of much shorter bits together.  I'd rather not have a lot of wasteful cuts and knots in this -weak points, too, I should think- but handling 100 feet through each pass and each knot is a real girldog to work with...

[Buster's Uncle]

Spindle - now I remember how I did it for my brother 12 years ago, for a bunch of old chairs that came down in his wife's family with a bunch of store-bought rope.  You haveta wind it on a stout stick to get it all thin enough to weave.
 

 
There's about six feet, or around enough to do a row sideways and back, before Mylochka's going to have to get me more...

[Unorthodox]

Sisal?

Isn't that a bit pokey?  (or maybe mine was lower quality)

[Buster's Uncle]

Pokey?  Like scratchy?

I guess it might be if you weren't wearing pants.  I've done a million of these over the years with the same or similar material, and never had any trouble like that or any other - it works surprisingly well.

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, scratchy.  I know my hands were raw by the time I finished Jim, and swore to only use hemp in the future for such things. 

[Buster's Uncle]

It IS rough on the hands, yes.

[Spacy]

Cool project

[Buster's Uncle]

I messed up pretty bad -not the only time I made this mistake, but it's been a long time- in cinching the first direction kinda tight.  That makes this part very difficult...

[Buster's Uncle]

I do wish I hadn't made the forward and back setup so tight - as you weave, the thing tightens up, and I could have had a MUCH easier time with this and woven it denser, w/ less gaps.

The initial hundred feet of rope had enough left over to weave back and forth once, with a little left over.  Mylochka ran out and got 300 more feet in 50-foot coils, and I got back on it around noon.



I made -I think it's called a shuttlecock, but I've got no formal training (or informal; just worked all this out for myself) in weaving- out of a piece of plywood, and that helped a lot, since I've had to go between the lines vertically, and this was thinner than wound around a stick, and less prone to rope sliding off the tool.



This is at the end of the first new 50' of line, and the bare shuttlewhatsis.

After this, I cut off approximately 15' and did the rest w/ bare rope tool-less, 'cause it was running out of room - I needed to finish a time across and do across and back twice more.



I had a little left over, that I wrapped around on the left until I'm done with everything and decide whether I have enough line left over to do something fancy/decorative on the sides.

Naturally, I've sit-tested, and am satisfied.  That sucker's tight as a drum, and feels fine under that butt...

---

Tomorrow, I start figuring out what I'm doing with the back of the chair...

[gwillybj]

 

[Rusty Edge]

Nice!