Toby helped with this patch application; he cut the thread for me a few times, whether or not I wanted him to.
It’s been years since my last needlepoint project (a belt for a boyfriend … who was an ex-boyfriend before the belt was done), and I wasn’t very good then. I’m worse now – but just competent enough to sew a patch onto a hat. In the video below, I tacked the corners down…but I recommend, after sewing on a second patch at home, that you instead use four pins to keep the patch in place as you stitch the edges. That means just a little less sewing.
Oh – and I also recommend having pliers at the ready – especially if you have even a touch of the ol’ arthritis. The patch material is stiff and thick, and the hat is thick at the seams thanks to the cotton reinforcement tape. The pliers make it a lot easier to pull the needle through.
My first chairmaking students in a class co-taught with Alexander Bear at my home shop, the Kansas City Woodworkers’ Guild.
I started teaching chairmaking one year ago, fresh off a week assisting Christopher Schwarz’s Chairmaker’s Toolbox class. I had just a few chairs under my belt and probably wasn’t quite ready to teach anyone else how to make them, but I had a willing co-teacher and enough reckless abandon to try. We set off on a 10-week adventure, building chairs in three-hour chunks on Monday nights.
After a few weeks, one of the students came in and said, “I’ve been reading the book after class – you sound exactly like Chris!”
Learning to narrate your actions while also maintaining accuracy only comes with practice — which sometimes means messing up in front of an audience. Luckily that didn’t happen here!
He wasn’t wrong. I am a self-taught woodworker; the closest thing I had to a woodworking education was “The Stick Chair Book,” the LAP blog, and two weeks at the Willard Street shop. I pored over my notes before every class. It made perfect sense that I was teaching in Chris’s voice. Each week felt like a final exam that I was cramming for, hoping we could make it through the evening with everyone’s parts intact.
I had to cram because I wasn’t fluent in chairmaking yet – I knew the steps but I didn’t really speak the language. I studied and memorized so I could remember how to do something and confidently answer student questions about “what if?” or “why?”– even if those answers weren’t based in personal experience. In other words: I faked it ’til I made it. And we ended up with a batch of decent chairs.
I approach every visit to LAP with a specific goal. Last year I wanted to understand how Chris structured a class. This year’s priority? Stock prep and tool maintenance.
On the last day of the CMT class in 2025, Chris invited me back to co-teach the next one. I wasn’t ready when he asked me but I had a whole year to get there.
Fluency only comes with time on the tools and hours at the bench. I committed myself to making more chairs, from “The Stick Chair Book” and of my own design. I was determined to fix my mistakes (of which there were many: cracked arms, failed finishes, spelched mortises … the list goes on!) so that I could fix student mistakes. I challenged myself to build without referencing notes, relying instead on instinct and memory. It worked. Once I absorbed the processes, teaching became less like reading off a script. It morphed into something more creative, more fun. The act of teaching became a constant soothing affirmation: You know what you are doing. You Are A Chairmaker.
When I walked into the LAP shop two weeks ago, though, I was hit with a whole new set of doubts. I knew I could build a chair and teach a class, but what would it be like teaching in front of the person who taught me? Would the students ask me any questions or would they just want to talk to Chris? How embarrassing is it going to be when he hears me rip off one of his jokes? Am I just a bad bootleg?
Chris taught me how to build my first chair at the Willard Street shop in September 2023. I’m amazed by how far I’ve come and how much further I have to go.
Turns out I didn’t have anything to worry about. I surprised myself: I had built the muscle memory; developed my own questionable jokes (ask me about Tenon Town!); and developed the confidence to teach in my own way, injected with my personality and my experience. I didn’t feel like a mimic anymore; I felt like a part of a craft tradition.
And the student feedback this time?
“You and Chris are so different – you make a great pair.”
“Pile of chairs” Closeup of Men Shoveling Chairs (Scupstoel), Circle of Rogier van der Weyden, possibly Vranke van der Stockt (Netherlandish, ca. 1420–1495)
While working on Don Weber’s profile for The Stick Chair Journal No. 4, Don told me that he had a carousel of slides that might of interest. These were images he used during a talk he gave with Michael Dunbar, and, he believes, Jennie Alexander, at a chair symposium at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library.
Don has always enjoyed reading and is well known for his extensive collection of books on the craft, including many rare and first-edition books. Many of those books were lost in a 2010 flood that sent four-and-a-half feet of water, mud and oil (there was an auto repair shop across the street) into Don’s shop. He tried to salvage what he could. Many of the images on these slides were pulled from those now-lost books.
We pored over these images and thought you might like to as well. Some have captions from Don (in quotes), some have captions from us, some have no captions at all.
Enjoy!
— Kara Gebhart Uhl
“Turned chair, 14c” Maastricht Book of Hours, BL Stowe MS17
“Joseph the carpenter” Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece), Workshop of Robert Campin Netherlandish, ca. 1427– 1432
“Monks riving” Cistercian monks at work, 12th century, Cîteax Moralia in Job, 1111
“A monk turning rosary beads” Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, Band 1, Nürnberg 1426 – 1549, Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317.2°
“Turned table elements” The Young Virgin, Francisco de Zurbarán, Spanish, ca. 1632 – 33
from Ständebuch (The Book of Trades), Jost Amman and Hans Sachs, 1568
The Pewter Potter, Ständebuch (The Book of Trades), Jost Amman and Hans Sachs, 1568
Tornarius. Der Holtzdreher (The Turner), Ständebuch (The Book of Trades), Jost Amman and Hans Sachs, 1568
“Bow lathe, Eastern” De Stoelemaaker (The Chairmaker), Het Menselyk Bedryf (The Book of Trades), Jan Luyken and Caspar Luyken, 1694
“Chairmakers’ shop” L’art du Tourneur mécanicien, Père Hulot, 1775
“A closer look at the chairmakers’ shop” L’art du Tourneur mécanicien, Père Hulot, 1775
“Turner’s shop” A turner’s workshop, Robert Bénard after Lucotte
“De Draajer” (The Turner), Het Menselyk Bedryf (The Book of Trades), Jan Luyken and Caspar Luyken, 1694
A turner’s workshop, Robert Bénard after Lucotte
Stent panel
Stent panel
Plate 13 from M. Hulot’s “L’Art du Tourneur Mécanicien” (1775)
Plate 13 from M. Hulot’s “L’Art du Tourneur Mécanicien” (1775)
Plate 13 from M. Hulot’s “L’Art du Tourneur Mécanicien” (1775)
Plate 13 from M. Hulot’s “L’Art du Tourneur Mécanicien” (1775)
Plate 13 from M. Hulot’s “L’Art du Tourneur Mécanicien” (1775)
“Lathe construction” Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert
“Poppets up close”
“Bow lathe parts” Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts méchaniques: avec leur explication, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert
L’art du Tourneur mécanicien, Père Hulot, 1775
“Moxon, great wheel lathe” Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises,” 1680
“Dominy lathe, Winterthur Museum Garden & Library”
“The Book of Trades or Library of Useful Arts,” 1807
Last month, I went to Nashville where Travis Curtis taught a group of fellow woodworkers and me how to build a Jennie Chair and, for better or for worse, I decided it should be purple and have squirrels on it. The chair was built, woven and painted purple in five days. Mapping out and painting the squirrel design back at the Willard Street shop took a couple more days.
The chair is painted in plum from Real Milk Paint and finished with a coat of garnet shellac and Soft Wax on top. The details are painted with acrylic paint from Real Milk Paint. The chair’s overall height reaches 33-1/4″, and its width is 18-1/4″. The seat height is 17-1/4″, and the depth is 14-1/2″. The seat is woven with sturdy recycled paper.
The back slats hug the body nicely and slightly bend with the sitter. The woven seat has a gentle give to it – not stiff and not loose. The chair is lightweight at 6 pounds.
I chose squirrels as the star rodent for this chair. I wanted to replicate the layout of the hare and flowers on the Irish chair I made earlier this year while also allowing the chair to have its own personality.
This chair is ready to start its life journey with a special someone. I’m selling it via silent auction with the starting bid being $600. The highest bid is the price you will pay. The price includes crating and shipping anywhere to the lower 48 with no additional charges.
If you wish to buy this chair, send and email to [email protected] before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19, 2026. Please use the subject line “Squirrel Chair.” In the email please include your:
Bid
Name
U.S. shipping address
Daytime phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)
If you are the winner, the chair will be shipped to your door. If you’re local to Covington, you can pick it up at our shop.
Comments are now closed. If we’ve not yet answered your question, we’ll get to it soon! Join us again on October 10.
Welcome to Lost Art Press Open Wire, where until 5 p.m. Eastern, you can ask any and all woodworking questions and questions about Lost Art Press, our cats, Shakespeare (me), Late 19th/early 20th-century Russian literature (Chris), and we and your fellow readers will do our best to answer. Simply post your questions in the comments section below.
Note that there might be a lag between your questions and our answers. Chris is busy building a chair, and I am working on my kitchen renovation.
The remaining Open wire dates for 2026 are: October 10 December 12
