caning – Sincerely Liz

I know that I have mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again, I have the best Goodwill store ever!

I went for my weekly visit, and I noticed a set of 6 ladder back chairs. Everyone that knows me, knows I have an addiction to chairs, I have them everywhere, seriously, everywhere. I have chairs hanging in trees, decorated in gardens, mounted to walls, in every corner, stored in my cellar and attic, as well as a warehouse we have. I took at good look at the 6 chairs, and they needed work, each needed to have a new seat, but the price was 14.99 a chair, so I passed on the chairs.

I continued looking around and decided to look at the chairs again, and they weren’t 14.99 a chair, it was for the set. If you know anything about Goodwill stores, they have colored tags and everyday they have a special color tag that is half off, and today was a green day and my chairs had green tags. Now my 14.99 chairs are 7.50 a set, and with my senior discount they are 6.75 a set. SOLD

Now the adventure begins….

I am very fortunate to have a store locally that sells chair repairs supplies. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough rush to redo all six chairs, so she recommended flat reed splint seats. I can cane and rush, but have never tried splint seats, but I have woven hundreds of baskets, so I was ready for the challenge. I found many videos on YouTube and many sites with different patterns, but I couldn’t make up my mind on patterns. The solution was easy, 6 chairs, 6 different patterns, how much fun will this be !

I don’t know if I am going to leave them natural or add a little tint to them, I guess I will figure that out when I finish them all.

This has to be the best 6.75 I have ever spent..

Hi, my name is Liz, and I am a chair-aholic. I cannot pass by a chair without wanting it, and it doesn’t matter what condition it is in. I have chairs hanging in trees, under trees, in gardens and in every room in the house. I even have chairs stored in the garage and in a warehouse. I happened to be at my favorite auction, Capone’s Vault in Amsterdam, and a poor little chair wasn’t being bid on. It didn’t have a seat, and was a bit wobbly, but it caught my attention. When the bid kept getting lower and lower and it was finally at 1 dollar, my number went in the air, and I held my breath that nobody would raise the bid. SOLD

I took my little chair home and glued it, cleaned it up and it was ready for caning. I then realized I was out of cane, and in my rural area, you can’t just run out and buy it, hmmmm, I wonder how it would look caned with twine? I always have twine, I make bracelets with it, so I started to cane the chair with my dollar store twine, and next thing I know, the chair is done and I even have twine left.

If you have been doing the math, chair 1 dollar, twine 1 dollar, total cost for this little chair, 2 dollars. That’s what I call sitting in the cheap seats!