Tipi Report - Pinned & Pegged

It's a been a hectic week and not too much time has been left over for working on my favorite project. Progress on my final pair of panels was also held up until some more materials where obtained. There's no 4" wide webbing to be found in town, so the lacing pin panels will have to do without that detail for reinforcment. Instead of the webbing I'll make the canvas panels four layers thick for strength. Any more layers than that and Grandma's sewing machine will go on strike! The thickness is also causing the fabric to pucker up instead of laying flat when pinned together. Still, the reinforcments throughout all the lodge cover's stress areas can't be considered an option.

With that done, I've just gotten started buttonhole stitching around the edges of each individual pin hole - four down, with approximately forty more to go :P



Soooo.... avoiding the 40 pinholes seemed like a pretty good idea, today I carved out the first few stake pegs and lacing pins, using straight chokecherry shoots collected from the backyard. Any hardwood that's straight and minus branches will do. The ins are about the thickness of a pencil, and the stakes between 3/4" to 1 " thick. Traditionally, a strip of bark is left, encircling ends of the pegs and pins, the rest is peeled and scraped away. The pins also got a light sanding after being scraped, so as not to catch and fray the tent fabric. A coating of beeswax or other weatherproofing agent on the pins might be a good idea too.