Easy cane charger plates tutorial

Lately I’ve been attracted to natural fiber textures. I specially have fallen for cane webbing which can be found on the backing and sides of vintage wooden barrel chairs. Inspiration struck me while at HomeGoods when I found some hurricane candle holders that had this material as a decorative covering (more than a reason to #gofinding). Because I love cane so much, I decided on creating a set of charger plates inspired by similar ones I saw at a famous home catalog. Now that summer is arriving and there are many outdoor festivities and tables to style, this easy cane charger plates tutorial will help you in creating your own set.

Simple materials:

To start this project I bought 8′ of classic cane webbing (you can buy these by foot or in smaller pieces) and 6 Wooden Embroidery Hoops (each hoop measures 12″). Depending on the quantity of charger plates you’ll be working with, adapt the quantity of cane webbing. Because each hoop had around a foot in diameter, I added 1/4″ to each side for when folding it around the hoop.

Don’t discard the any remaining material because you’ll be using it later. Also, you’ll need a stapler with additional staple refills and E6000 Industrial Strength Adhesive.

Before starting to cut:

In order to better work with the cane webbing material, it should be placed under water. This will allow the fiber to loosen up making it easier to work with. I placed the complete roll inside a galvanized bucket for around an hour. After this time, I started cutting the roll into pieces.

Cutting and stapling the cane webbing material:

To cut the material I placed the inside hoop (the smaller of the two) centering it from the shortest sides. On the longer sides I allowed about 1″ of material as shown on the photo.

Before the cane webbing started to dry, I quickly started to staple the sides to the inner embroidery hoop. I staple everything from the inside part and placed each staple close together (similar to stitching). After this I lay each piece in a flat surface for them to dry. Placing a heavy object on top helps to maintaining these pieces flat. Remember we are working with natural fiber and it has a tendency to bend.

Adding the outer hoop and final detail:

After stapling all the parts, I added to each piece the outer embroidery wooden hoop. You’ll notice now that this hoop won’t fit around the smaller one (the one with the cane webbing). In order to make it fit, I took away the metallic clasp (you can also bend it inward) and used the E6000 Industrial Strength Adhesive to glue together both hoops.

Allow time for these hoops to dry together and use clamps for holding them. For this task I used the Dewalt Medium Trigger Clamp with 6 inch Bar, 2pk.

After the charger plates have dried, I wrapped strands of the leftover cane to cover the area where the metallic clasps were. To make this symmetrical, I wrapped more strands on the opposite side (as shown on the picture below). To secure these wrapped pieces, I used again the E6000 Industrial Strength Adhesive.

After all the sides were ready and wrapped, it was time to cut the leftover material underneath the charger plates with a small scissor.

This easy cane charger plates tutorial was a real pleasure to work with. The cane webbing brings back so many beautiful memories from when I was a little kid. Back then I admire handmade pieces of furniture that use cane as part of their design. Now each time I place our table using these charger plates I will definitively get transported back in time. Now, let’s get styling!!!