OUR CRAFTSMANSHIP
All our tipis are entirely made in the USA, in Bend, Oregon. The fabric is rolled out and cut by hand in our workshop. After cutting, the bundles of fabric are picked up by local seamstresses who do the sewing in their own dedicated work spaces. Once they bring back the finished covers and liners, we paint them in our workshop.
THREAD AND REINFORCEMENTS
For all our covers, doors and rain caps we use #92 industrial Dacron/Polyester outdoor thread. This thread is UV resistant and has anti-wick properties which reject water molecules, so the seams will not leak. All our reinforcing is facilitated by adding additional layers of canvas and 2” or 3” webbing to all areas of high abrasion and stress. The areas that we reinforce most heavily are the bottom edge of the tipi cover, all peg loops, the pinning face with the button holes, the transition to the smoke flaps (the “L”), the smoke flap pockets and the lift pole flap area (the “W”).
rain channels, mesh, and zippers
The Campground Cover has a larger door opening and velcro on both sides for the attachment of the Zipper Door. We attach a rain channel above these 3” wide white velcro strips along both sides of the door. The rain channels help reduce the amount of rain that would normally come through the door opening. It guides the rain along the outside of the velcro strip and let it run into the ground. We also add a rain channel to the zipper door, to the right side of the zipper tape.
For our Zipper Mosquito Screen Door we are using two 15 gauge custom manufactured marine grade zippers with a sturdy zipper handle. The inner screen door is made out of tightly woven tan colored polyester netting and can be rolled back and tied off with ribbon ties. The outer canvas door is made of the same material as your tipi cover.
For our Zipper Mosquito Screen Door we are using two 15 gauge custom manufactured marine grade zippers with a sturdy zipper handle. The inner screen door is made out of tightly woven tan colored polyester netting and can be rolled back and tied off with ribbon ties. The outer canvas door is made of the same material as your tipi cover.
our sewing reinforcements
We reinforce along the bottom edge of the tipi cover by sewing a 3” nylon webbing band onto the inside. Our peg loops are made of 1” synthetic webbing and are sewn down between the hemmed canvas cover and the 3” webbing band. The peg loops are reinforced with an extra canvas patch and cross stitching to ensure that they do not pull out.
The door entrance and pinning face with the button holes have double canvas reinforcement plus a 3” webbing band sewn into the pinning strip. You will see this when you inspect the button hole slits. Each button hole is 1” long and has a slit to hold the lacing pins snugly in place. The slits have to be just long enough to allow the pins to get through, otherwise the pinning face would leak. You will also see that the distance between both button holes in the same row on the left side of the cover is wider than the distance on the right side. This makes pinning the two sides together a little easier.
The transition from the top of the pinning face to the smoke flaps is prone to rip without reinforcement – To assure that this does not happen with our tipis, we insert a nylon cord or some sturdy netting around the whole “L” and triple stitch each corner. This way, the smoke flap cannot possibly rip off the tipi cover.
Although the smoke flaps have a selvage edge that cannot fray, we still hem the whole smoke flap edge. We also reinforce the smoke flap tie loop with a patch and add two extra layers of fabric to the smoke flap pockets. Both the upside and the downside of the smoke flap pockets are doubled up, so pointed smoke flap poles cannot poke through them.
The ‘W’ contains the lift pole flap and the upper sides of the smoke flaps, ending in the smoke flap pockets. The whole area is reinforced with a second layer of fabric, then hemmed with 3” webbing. When we suggest hammering a nail through the lift pole flap after you tied the tipi cover to it, you will hammer through 4 layers of fabric. This will ensure that the fabric will not rip when raising the lift pole up with the tipi cover attached.
