More tents

I built a spoked oval tent 2 years ago, last spring I painted it. Of course I don't have any pictures of it completed with the paint. Why? Don't ask me. Cause I'm a dork, and the people who do have pictures of it still have not sent any to me. This is why I have a digital camera now.













Since I am a dork I managed to sew the bottom loops on the walls in a totally stoopid way. So stoopid that I managed to rip two places on the wall panels where the loops were sewed. Agh! Dumb ass! This happened at the end of July and I've been so mad at myself that it wasn't able to look at the rips until last night when I took the walls out of the storage bag to finally repair them. It was not as bad as I remembered. The rips were maybe 3" at the longest and at the bottom of the wall where I could easily sew on a patch, which I did. I took off ALL the loops and threw them away and started with fresh loops and re-worked the bottom edge.

I decided to use the method for attaching the ground loops like I did with the wedge tent. The bottom of the walls have a 12" mudflap, which gets folded towards the inside of the tent.


To begin, I fold the mudflap back so the wrong side is facing the wrong side and the edge of the fold is right where the walls join.

I then sew 1" in from the folded edge.

I turn the walls right side up, bring the flap out from under the walls and hold the folded edge flat towards the bottom of the walls and run a topstitch.

The loops get inserted inside the fold and are secured with another row of stitching.


The finished loop (notice where the loop was originally located, yup, it was too high and was pulling on the fabric).
I usually do three passes total along the bottom and will go back and forth at each loop location to keep them in place. I'm hoping that this will help absorb the strain of the ground loops. That and having spokes that are the right length and center poles that are not too high. All kinds of things that need changing when you are creating your own design...

I have thicker poles and spokes in the works as well.