Indoor camping

I am sparing you all my over-excited ramblings about home grown mushrooms tonight ( I think I might be the only one who cares. And there are none in the box right now, anyway), and say instead 'look, look! I actually made something!' Sewing and crafting are one thing that has been missing in my life since SP fell into it, and, I confess, that I tried to cut out the first fabric triangle for this project while my 19 month old was awake and roaming about and I very quickly remembered why I don't do this kind of thing while she is around normally. Got just a wee bit frustrated. Lucky for her that she's cute! Ahem. Long story short, I put the scissors aside until she was in bed later that night.

I told you the other day that I've developed an obsession for children's indoor teepees (and outdoor bean teepees). I've even been collecting pictures of them. I decided I was going to have a go at making one myself, since it was only a few dowels and a couple of big fabric triangles, and I have a sewing machine gathering dust in the back of the cupboard. It was actually pretty easy to construct (once the SP was in bed!), just don't look too closely at the seams!


And I'm pretty sure my wee babe likes it and will have fun with it for years to come;


It even kind of folds up so we can store it more easily if we want to;

If I was a really dedicated blogger I'd draw up little 'How To' diagrams and write out instructions, but there are tutorials out there on the WWW already and I didn't follow any of them myself and I don't expect that anyone would really want one from me. But here's a couple of details just in case you are interested:
Materials were 4 x 180cm wooden dowels (18mm diameter), 1 x rubber band to hold them together at the top, and 2m each of three different cheap fabrics. I made the pyramid shape with the dowels and measured up the sides and cut my fabric to size. There are three, equal sized triangles of fabric for the back and sides and I used leftover fabric to make the door at the front. I stitched the sides together (with French seams which was probably unnecessary and a waste of time), leaving a hole at the top for the poles. I draped the fabric over the poles and hand-stitched the fabric to the poles along the seams in a couple of places to hold the whole lot together. That was it, pretty simple if you're at all craft-minded (and your eyes will be glazing over if you're not!)

The project was not quite as cheap as I would have liked. The dowels were a bit over $6 each, fabric varied between $4-$10/m and cost about $40 all together, all up the project cost a bit under $70 and about 4 hours of my time.

Gosh, feels good to actually make something! I should do it more often.