Experience the Art of Chair Repair with Susannah Anderson

On Sunday,  February 22,  from 10 am to 2 pm at the Berkshire County Store, during Weekend in Norfolk, you can find artist Susannah Anderson, immersed in a craft that ties beauty, patience, and heritage together: chair rushing and hole to hole caning. With every meticulous weave, Susannah breathes new life into worn chairs, preserving heirloom furniture, and the rich, layered stories embedded in each seat. 

Susannah’s path to chair weaving began with a deeply personal motivation: a family heirloom. When my in-laws downsized, they passed on a few pieces of furniture, including a pair of worn Danish modern chairs,” she recalls. Intrigued, and determined to restore them, she dove into online tutorials, and in 2019, I re-wove those chairs."  What many crafts people find fascinating about rushing and weaving is the rhythmic act of wrapping and knotting, and watching geometric patterns emerge as a chair comes back to life and usefulness. 

That initial spark soon ignited a wider passion. From Danish cord to ash splint, from a neighbor’s heirloom chair to a canoe seat her father was restoring, each new project added to her skill set. "I see rushing and caning as a way for people to be able to use a chair they love. If someone has had a chair with a broken seat for years it must mean something to them, to save it and be willing to put money into getting it fixed -  or even a beloved thrifted item. People seem very glad to be able to use their chairs again," Susannah shares. 

Chair rushing is a traditional English cottage craft dating back to the 17th century. It involves twining flexible materials—like natural rush, fiber rush (a paper-based reed), or Danish cord—around chair seat rails in tight, geometric diagonals.

Unlike open-weave caning, rushing produces a solid, structural surface that’s both durable and beautifully textured. The result is a seat with practical strength and nostalgic charm. According to Heritage Crafts, rush seating was commonly used on rustic ladder- and spindle-back chairs and was often done by home-based or itinerant workers in regions like Buckinghamshire and Cheshire.

A painter by background, Susannah brings an artist’s eye and deep respect for craftsmanship to every project. Now she tries her hands at a number of traditional techniques and has also tackled the delicate art of hole to hole caning, weaving by hand through intricately drilled holes in the frame of the chair. Though the process may look simple, it requires patience, strong hands, and a keen eye for detail. 

Preserving traditional crafts comes with modern challenges. Materials cost more than they used to, and handmade work always takes time. "Trying  to keep a project affordable, while making a living, as we say, is the ongoing challenge,” she notes. Her restoration work celebrates reclamation over replacement, and emotion over mass production.

Visitors to her Sunday demonstration are treated to a rare experience: watching not just the repair of a chair, but the revival of a tradition—woven by hand, kept alive by care, passed on through art.