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.

Tipi Report - The Backbone is Done!

A week after all the finishing work on the backbone of the cover began, all the work of the layered reinforcing and web-edging is all stiched into place. The lift flap feels solid, and the additional webbed-edging definitely makes the smoke flaps stronger. This morning the smoke flap pole pockets were quickly stitched in place, and it's time to move on to those front lacing strips. After 3 months it's kind of hard to believe the cover is nearly complete. Now work on the two strips is all that's really left. As usual, I'm taking my time to check, double check and adapt each piece as needed to make everything work together as a whole.

Tipi Report - The word of the day is REINFORCE

Tipi lodge lift flap/tongue and reinforcement patch.


Starch ironing the patches really aides the whole sewing process at this point as the layers and folds keep building.

After all the reinforcing patches are in place the cotton webbing hem tape will be added along the entire edge. I went with the cotton webbing as it would appear more authentic than nylon, matches the canvas coloring. And as this will be the top of the lodge, it won't break down from being exposed to the harsh prairie sunlight like nylon.

Tipi Report - The Backbone

Without a doubt the most daunting part of planning my tipi cover has been the lift pole/smoke flap assembly. This is were the real part of making a lodge is. The fact that my cover is made of lightweight canvas means I have to constantly think about reinforcing, reinforcing, reinforcing. The last thing I want to do is set up my lodge and have the first strong gust that catches the fabric to result in a catastrophy!

My tipi's lift flap will have 4 layers - 1 triangular piece on top the cover, with those sandwiched between two large half-circle patches above and below. The reinfored stitching over this area will be done in a criss-cross, or quilt-style pattern. Also, these patches extend over the adjoining corners of the smoke flaps which will be reinforced with a folded strip exteding up to the pole pockets. All along the edge, from pole pocket to lift flap to pole pocket will be adde a hem of 3" webbing tape.

I had to stop work for a few days until I could find a place that sold canvas sewing machine needles after the Sears Kenmore finally busted one after all this time. I learned that no matter how carefully I try, this machine will not zig-zag stitch through more than two-three layers of canvas fabric without catching the needle. Zig zags are stronger than straight stitches (ask sail-makers) but there's only so much that I can ask Grandma's old sewing machine to do.

I also had to run out and buy a third section of canvas now that I'll be extending the pin-hole flaps outward from the cover body due to adding gore panels to the bases of my smoke flaps. One little change can effect everything!

Tipi Report - Trail Fit

The main body of the cover is all hemmed and double stitched. I couldn't resist trying it on! After the initial shrinkage of the canvas, the bottom hem is riding high, but the addition of the lift flap and the lacing flaps should lower the edge more than is shown. Plus I always have the option of adding more fabric if I think its needed ;) But obtaining enough poles of the proper length is going to be a bigger issue...

Tipi Report - Cutting Begins!

Today we made the commitment of putting scissors to a very LARGE hunk of fabric - there's no turning back now!

BEFORE

AFTER

The 24' x 12' cover practically fills up my driveway, and makes use of two large canvas dropclothes joined end to end (which cuts down considerably on sewing!) Then after stretchinbg out my cnavas as flat as possible I simply determined the center line at the top edge, and from there measured out a length of string tied to a pencil to trace out the half circle shape of the bottom hem... the rest was snip-snip-snip.

I'd already preshrunk my fabic to offset the risk of my lodge going from a size 12' to a size 10'5", so the very bottom edge came up a bit short. I can use some of the extra material just trimmed off to sew on there.

Why a size 12' tipi? When many "experts" and manufacturers advise nothing less than 18'? Because 12' is right for the two of us - our plan is to eventually use this for camping (not "living"), it cuts down costs and construction (not to mention stress on an old sewing machine) and for now that's the plan I'll stick to.

I can only hope that Grandma's 60's era Sears Kenmore is up to the task of sewing the rest. So far a canvas sewing needle and the spool of outdoor UV resistent polyester thread I found at Walmart is doing the job. Now I'll need to do some basic hemming around all the edges to keep the material from fraying and reinforce the existing seams with an additional zig-zag stitch.

Tipi Report - Sew What?

Add Grandma's freshly lubed Sears Kenmore, a spool of UV resistent polyester thread and two large canvas sections measuring 24' long and what have you got?

A kidhood dream-come-true in the making!

Looks like my livingroom is going to be taken over by yards and yards of tent-making for the fore-seeable future.

Tipi Report - Got Canvas!

At a local hardware liquidator I found some large canvas dropcloths, strong but lightweight, which is just what my Grandma's old sewing machine should be able to handle if were to make a traditional canvas lodge cover. If it were to be out in the weather year-round we'd definitely want something hevier, but for our purposes, the lightweight fabric is the ideal choice.

I brought home the largest size canvas the shop had (12' x 15') and threw this on my old tipi poles, partly for old time's sake, and partly just to get some idea of the size. The overall height shown in the photo is 8'. That was fine for us back in the day as kids, but just a bit too confining now. We definitely don't want to go with anything under 10' at the very least.


On a side note, this evening I found this Monarch chrysalis attached to one of the poles.