Tent / Reading Nook / Play House

Our little girl Lucille is a wild monkey. I don’t say this lightly-she is wild! She scales walls and hangs from chandeliers; she lives for danger! She loves to play in a tent as most kids do (kids on the spectrum especially). We have gone through several from various stores. I was getting tired of it and began thinking of making her a stronger one but hadn’t found the right project or design.

The tent is now spectacular! It stands at almost 6’ tall’ and is 38” deep and nearly 52” wide.

Here are some of the changes that I made to the original plan:

- Added a brace in the back that screws into the baseboards in two places.
- Bolted the top to the wall and secured the cross pieces.
- Adjusted the size of the board at the top (holding the cover).

Sewing the cover:

- Measured the sides and taped paper at the front to get the angle for the front and back.
- Used about 6 yards of the purple, 1 yard of the lavender organza, 2 yards of the print in the back (improvised), and ½ yard of the nylon mesh.
- Attached 12 straps (3 on each side) to attach the cover to the frame (much needed addition) with 2 smaller ties on the front.
- Used nylon mesh to create the skylights (Adorable).
- Glued velcro on the frame itself rather than attach to the cover.
- Finished every edge of the fabric because the main purple fabric had lots of fraying (In hindsight, I should’ve used a poly or something that wouldn’t fray).
- Stitched all seams and then top stitched for strength (which is why I used almost three rolls of thread!!)
- Released the seams in all four corners at the bottom about 4 inches, so it would hang well and allow the sides to wrap around to velcro.

It looks great and will hopefully stay in her room for awhile, although I may have gone a bit overboard with the skylights and transparent organza in the front. She isn’t too interested in it yet and I'm wondering if it's too open and doesn’t give her that closed-in feeling that she likes. I may need to cover the skylights or switch the organza with some fabric.