A few months ago a friend mentioned that she wanted to make a tent/fort for her 18 month old son. She of course also convinced me that I needed to make one for my nephew and the adventure began. Another friend wanted one, but was swamped so we decided to add her two year old son to the list for his birthday. My friend doesn’t sew, so this was also a chance for her to learn – with lots of very long straight hems to sew. We were a bit nervous about getting it all correct, so added a 4th “practice tent” to the list. And… as we progressed another friend loved the idea and commissioned one for her granddaughter! The first one probably took about 6 hours, but once all the pieces were cut we got them down to about 3 hours each – plus whatever embellishments we wanted to add.

The practice tent

Cutting was no easy feat. In the “you get what you pay for” mode our $3 twin sheets were a foot shorter and a foot wider than the pattern and nowhere near square, luckily Abby pulled out her math brain and we came up with new measurements. We fell into a good system of Abby doing most of the pinning and ironing and I did most of the sewing (though she did try her hand a few times). She also cut and tied the bamboo poles!

Milo's bird tent

In the end we had our own super cute tent city – with thumbs up from the two older boys.

Janet's woodland tent

Unfortunately I don’t seem to have a photo of tate’s finished tent – Abby added really cute print, red & brown pennant flags to the top.

Tate's red tent

And I finally found a use for the super cute Dr. Seuss fabric I’ve been in love with for my nephews tent.

Isaiah's tent

More of Isaiah's tent

Proof of Abby sewing