by Mike Elliott, Kettle River Canoes
email: artisan@canoeshop.ca
In my book, This Old Canoe: How To Restore Your Wood-Canvas Canoe, I describe how to weave natural cane (rattan) in Chestnut canoe seats. However, most canoe builders used their own weaving pattern for their canoe seats.
Many of the original canoe builders in the USA (Old Town, Carleton, Rushton, Morris, White ̶ to name a few) used a standard 6-stage warp-and-weft pattern in their seats. Here are instructions on how to weave this pattern. For this demonstration, I made new cherry seat frames for a 1905 J.H. Rushton Indian Girl.
In my book, I describe the full process of preparing the seat frames, preparing the cane and handling the cane during the weaving process. Here I will present the basic look of each stage and give details that apply to the warp-and-weft pattern.
First Stage ̶ Vertical strands
Second Stage ̶ Horizontal strands strung across the strands of the first stage
Third Stage ̶ A second set of vertical strands set next to the first set. These vertical strands create what weavers refer to as the “warp”. To this point, each set of strands is set on top of the previous set without any weaving.
Fourth Stage ̶ A second set of horizontal strands woven next to the first set. In this example, start on the right side rail. You will notice, moving from right to left, the first horizontal strand passes under the first vertical strand and over the second. In order to lock all four strands in a woven pattern, the second horizontal strand is woven over the first vertical strand and under the second. This creates what weavers refer to as the “weft”. Weave the strand over and under three or four pairs of vertical stands. Then, pull the entire strand through. Pull the strand firmly but not tight. Make sure that the strand is woven with the shiny side up and is free of twists. This process is hard on the cane. The tight bends required to weave this stage causes the cane to crack or even break on a regular basis. Be prepared to redo a strand if it breaks.
Continue weaving small sections of the first strand until you get to the left side rail. Pass the strand down through the hole to the underside and come up through the next hole in the left side rail and hold it in place with a caning peg. Now, continue the pattern by weaving from left to right.
This process is very slow. As you get more strands woven in the fourth stage of the pattern, use your fingernails to adjust the positions of the various strands until they are arranged more or less evenly.
Fifth stage – Diagonal strand woven under the vertical strands and over the horizontal strands. In this example, I started in the top right-hand corner and wove the strand under the first set of verticals and over the first set of horizontals. The pattern continues moving from right to left and from top to bottom. As with all weaving in these patterns, work in small sections of three or four strands before pulling the entire strand through. Check your work frequently in order to catch mistakes before you get too far into the pattern.
As you continue this diagonal stage, weave two strands into the corner hole.
Continue the pattern, until you have a complete set of diagonal (/) strands.
Sixth stage – Begin this stage in the empty corner on the transverse rail of the seat. In this example, it is the top left-hand corner. Trim the working-end of the cane strand to create a sharp point. This makes weaving easier. Make sure the shiny side of the strand faces up and start the weaving pattern by going under the diagonal strand next to the corner hole on the transverse rail of the seat. Then, weave over the first set of vertical strands in the pattern and under the first horizontal strands. Continue in this way (over the second set of vertical strands and under the second horizontal strands) until you reach the opposite transverse rail.
Continue with this pattern for each diagonal (\) strand .
The final step in the seat weaving is to do the usual “couching” to cover the holes in the seat frame. The couching is held in place with loops of cane in every second hole around the seat frame. I have seen some of these original seats couched at every hole, so the choice is yours.
All of this (and much more) is described in my book – This Fancy Old Canoe: A Comprehensive Guide to Restoring Antique Canoes.
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