The Easy Chair

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When the glue has dried - it usually takes a day - you're ready to fashion a seat and treat the chair. Since I'm a hunter and I enjoy giving my furniture a rustic look, I use deer hide for the seat. If you don't have any extra hides laying around the garage - or if you can't buy any locally - fabric, canvas or even burlap will do the job.

If you do use deer hide, soak it in water and wood ashes for a few days to easily remove the hair - tanning is not necessary. After cleaning up the hide, trim the outer edge with a pair of scissors to create a circular or oblong shape. Then cut a strip approximately 1" or so wide beginning on an outer edge and spiraling round and round until the hide runs out in the center. The end result is a strip of material about 80' long.

To start the weaving process, make your leather strip into a ball and place it in a pail of water. Fasten one end of the strip with a 5/8" tack to the underside of one of the 16" seat stretchers and weave across the 17" width of the chair, working front to back, until the complete width is covered. Be sure to pull each wrap tight - the strip will stretch easily while wet so frequent dips in the water pail are recommended. Once at the back stretcher, loop the strip around and continue weaving in the opposite direction, taking the strip over and under each previously woven strip (a Popsicle-stick piece of wood helps in lifting woven strips to allow for continuous weaving). When you've finished weaving, fasten the end of the strip to the underside of the stretcher with another 1/8" tack and cut off the excess. If you have extra material left over, you can weave the backrest the same way, or you can use 1/2" vertical rounds (see illustration) instead.

At this point, place the finished chair in the sun or near a woodstove to hasten drying time. After drying, your woven seat will be tight as a drum.

A coat of varnish on the seat - top only - can protect against moisture and stretching and is optional. Fabric, canvas or burlap seats, on the other hand, will need a coat of varnish on the top. Should the seat become loose or sag from use, simply dampen the underside of the weaving and allow to dry. You can varnish the wood if you see fit, but a brushing of boiled linseed oil is more natural and produces a warm, reddish-brown finish with darker knots. It can also provide moisture that will reduce shrinkage. Now all that's left is to put your feet up and have a seat in your all-natural original homesteader's chair.

Why buy when you can Do-IT-YOURSELF. www.motherearthnews.com

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