How to Weave a Rush Chair

When the Laird and I got married almost 4 years ago, we both owned our own houses.  I had a single family house in one part of the city.  He had a side by side duplex in another part of the city.  His house was within walking distance of the hospital that I worked at, so it only made sense for me to move in with him upon getting married.  We knew that we would eventually purchase a house with land, so we chose not to purchase new furniture at the time.

Over the years, the Laird has collected an assortment of furniture from garage sales to outfit his home.  His old roommate found a nice dining room table with 3 ladder back chairs at one such garage sale.  Since those days, the roommate has since gotten married and moved on- and left that old table & chairs with the Laird and the apartment.  My ideal table is a pedestal table, like the Sumner table from Pottery Barn.  I love pedestal tables because you can fit a lot of people around them, without impeding table legs.  Though this is my ideal, I have grown more and more content with our 'ole garage sale table and ladder back rush chairs.  What a great fit for a farmhouse- especially the chairs.  

Our rush chairs have obviously seen better days.

I wondered how difficult it would be to repair the rush on our chairs.  I found a wonderful YouTube video by Ed Hammond (Peerless Rattan), showing step by step how to weave a rush chair.  I decided to take on the challenge and purchased my materials from Peerless Rattan.  They sell a Complete Rush Seating kit, which includes 2 lbs. 5/32 craft brown fibre rush, an instruction booklet, wedge & peg.

Rush Seating Kit + other tools (that I didn't use)

Removed damaged rush & old tacks

The front of the chair is wider than the back, therefore it is necessary to weave a few rounds on the front of the chair to square it up for weaving the rest of the chair.  Each new strand is stapled into chair.  A regular staple gun will not work properly.  Use a T25 cable staple gun (Peerless Rattan, Home Depot, Lowes all sell them) for this project.  The staples have a rounded top, rather than flat; also called a cable gun.

It is helpful to use a pony clamp to hold the tension of rush as you work each round.  At this point in the project, 1-2 cardboard triangles into each open section of the seat, for extra strength/ support (refer to video for further explanation).

With sides weaved, you complete chair weaving front to back as space allows.

Helpful tip:  Wet the rush while working- but DO NOT soak.  Moistening the rush makes it more pliable to work with.  However, do not soak rush, as it will fall apart when applying tension.  Also, I ran out of fibre rush prior to completing this chair.  I thought it was a standard size, which generally used about 2lbs. fibre rush.  I would recommend buying more than 2lbs. so that you don't have to order more in the midst of your project.

And here is the finished chair- much better than what we started with.  I will re-weave the other 2 chairs we have to match.  A fun project to learn how to do- I mean who can say they have ever rushed a chair?  I can.  Peerless Rattan was a wonderful resource, both through the informational video and as a place to purchase quality supplies.  Their customer service was excellent, and the products arrived very quickly.  I highly recommend them for anyone interested in seat weaving.  They have instructional videos on a variety of seat weaving methods.

Currently sitting more comfortably!