Kid Painted Teepee & Teepee Pattern

You can read about how we created the fabric to this Teepee here. The painting of this fabric was a LOT of fun.

To recap I used 3 2/3 yards (approx 11ft) of plain white 90" muslin - this is a nice weight of muslin - very white, close weave and not sheer.) But you could use anything for this project, old sheets, duvet covers, patchwork fabric together, blankets. Just about any material would make a cute teepee. Magic Cabin have some canvas teepee's ready to paint if you don't feel like sewing one together yourself.

I used:
- 3 2/3 yards of plain white 90" wide muslin
- BioColor paints with added fabric medium
- thread
- strips of cotton for borders (totally optional - I used approx 1 yard each in two different fabrics - total 2 yards)
- 6 x round wood 8ft poles - holes are drilled 11" from top
- ribbon scraps for ties inside teepee & window opening
- string to tie the teepee poles together (I wrapped one of our homemade play silks around the string to hide it and add more color)

Once I had laundered and dried our painted fabric I lay it out on the floor and cut out the following panels. The tops of the triangle panels are cut off so the top edge measures 3" and the bottom of your panel measures 42".

The two edge triangles will make your doors into the teepee. I'm sad that our door panels don't have a huge amount of paint on them. If I did this project again I might limit the color palette AND concentrate on getting the girls to paint the edges of the fabric more. A LOT of our painting action went on in the middle of the fabric.

I decided to frame my panels with additional bright material (selected by the small bunnies of course!) - but I must admit half way through adding the strips I wondered why I was doing it. Though I hope it adds something. It certainly adds heft and strength to the structure. I cut the strips at 1.75" wide and with the seams they now measure approx 1.25". I attached the strips using a straight stitch and then used a zig zag over the seams. In all I used up a little less than 2 additional yards of fabric from my stash just with the strips, door ties & window.

After I had sewn the panels together I also zigzagged down those seams too. I sadly discovered that using zigzag stitch liberally can use up a lot of thread! (eeeek) but oh how I have learned to love the zigzag - such an adaptable stitch - can be used for all sorts of purposes!

Once you have most of your seams together - apart from the two front panels. You should have something that looks like this.

This would be a good time to add any windows - should you want to enter into this madness. Our window is 12" square. I cut it 30" above the ground in the center of the panel.

I drew the lines first with water soluble pen. And attached some extra thick & strong interfacing that I found at JoAnn's (it is about the thickness of cardboard) around the 3 lines. Once I cut the flap I put a border around the flap. The border sticks out about 3/4" from the edge of the fabric. I used a fusible iron on adhesive to put all these bits together & then I sewed around the edges to prevent the fabric from fraying.

I also added additional ties to this panel of the teepee (four on each seam instead of three) so that the window panel would me a little more taut. Added some purple ribbon to tie the window up & voila.

A window (I was sternly told by my 4 year old that there should have been 7 windows. All the ribbon in this project - the window ties and the inside ties are made from ribbon I am still recycling from our Princess Tea Party!

The front two half triangle panels are sewn 1/3 of the way down from the top. I sewed a very thin seam on the inside with a straight stitch and then zigzagged down that stitch on the front side too.

Each panel seam has three ties on the inside of the teepee (apart from the aforementioned window panel that has four ties on the seams.) One at the top, middle and bottom. The door panels have tie backs that were sewed in at the same time as the side panel & door panel were sewn together. The tie backs are attached 1/3 of the way up the side seam.

The teepee also looks very colorful from inside.

No one can say that this teepee is boring.

I think Jackson Pollack would have certainly enjoyed having it in his yard.

I hope these notes help you put together a fun teepee of your own. 

Kid Painted Fabric

My eldest bunny told me that our recycled teepee was 'too boring'. It was 'too white'. So I suggested we should make another one and that she should paint the fabric with her sister.

I prepared 7 colors for painting our fabric. I used BioColor paint and added their fabric medium. I like BioColor because it is kid friendly and the colors are very vibrant. As I have mentioned before the only things that are kind of a drag about this product is that it stains clothes and you are supposed to leave the paint and fabric medium to dry for five days (patience is not a 4 year olds strong point!) I am also making a Kids Painted Quilt from the same fabric & paint.

I mixed the paints in old jam jars. I took outside a plastic bag to collect any messy painted trash, paper towels (for emergency mopping), disposable plates and I also prepared a bucket of soapy water.

Outside I lay some utility tables on the ground (covered in large black plastic bags) to create a hard flat surface and lay my fabric over the top. I used 2 1/3 yards (approx 10ft) of plain white 90" muslin - this is a nice weight of muslin - very white, close weave and not too sheer.)

I poured the paint into the disposable plates ...

... I put disposable diapers on both girls (they are both potty trained) so their big girl pants would not get ruined & stained and the neighbors would not be offended by total nakedness - as well as thinking I was a little bit cuckoo ... 

... let the decorating begin ...

... the girls only used their hands and feet ...

 ... there was a point where the cloth (in my opinion) looked so pretty - but the girls didn't want to stop so I felt like I had to let them continue until all the paint was used up ...

... they enjoyed flicking the plates, carrying them around, pouring paint straight from the jam jars.

Here is our finished piece of fabric. I left it outside for a couple of hours to dry a little and then I took it down to our basement where it will sit for 5 days while my four year old will ask every minute 'is it ready yet?'

Stay tuned for what will be a unique looking teepee!

Our other kid painted fabric projects this summer have included:

Kid painted Garden Picnic Blanket

Kid painted Quilt #1 - Blotter Art

Kid painted Quilt #2 - Throwing Paint

Kid painted Quilt #3 - Spraying Paint

Kid painted Quilt #4 - Shaving Foam Paint

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Please do not forget about the charity I Spy quilt - we are still looking for scrap fabric donations. 

Recycled Teepee Play

I took our recycled teepee to the country along with our playsilks. Let the play begin!

Giggling away inside. 

Dancing around the teepee. 

Inspecting the local wildlife. 

I made the headbands by pushing some colored feathers through a band of felt. The felt was secured together by a ribbon tie. 

After the initial excitement the girls decided to decorate the teepee with flowers - inserting them into the cotton eyelet holes.

 

I hope you had a sunny time outside this weekend too. 

Recycled Teepee

When a friend of mine pointed me towards this tutorial on A Beautiful Mess about how to make your own teepee - I jumped at the opportunity to whip one up. I was amazed how quickly this project came together - but also the size of it - it is much bigger than I had thought it would be!

Before we moved into our house the previous owners had lived here for 45 years. I don't know if they had the same curtains for that period of time - but we took every curtain down. I washed kept some white 'cotton' eyelet curtains for a potential craft project. This material has now been sitting in a box for 3 years - hurrah - a purpose and confirmation of my belief that one should never throw material away.

I had to amend the tutorial slightly (my teepee is slightly narrower by 2" at the base) as I had a limited amount of material to work with.

Some of the material was damaged - but I just had to embrace the frays and nicks in some places.

I constructed the front panel differently from the tutorial. The front panel is a triangle at the top and then two gentle ruffled curtains with more abundant ruffles at the base of each curtain. I had some fabric scraps left over from the project and not enough length in the curtains so I sewed all the left overs scraps together and ruffled them - I think the ruffles hide all the seams well.

I carefully trimmed and saved some of the scalloped edges to make the curtain tie backs.

Inside the teepee I sewed 3 ties to each seam. One at the top, in the middle and at the bottom. I used ribbon that was left over from our Princess Tea Party - but I think you could use anything that can be tied tightly without ripping.

Instead of using 2x1 lengths of wood - I opted for a pricier round 1 3/8" wood molding poles (8ft lengths). Personally I think they were worth the extra cost.

The teepee will be mostly used outside but I did put felt pads on the bottom of each pole. Despite sanding the base of each pole before hand - I was worried that the poles would scratch or mark the floors when we played with it inside.

I made a mat for the tee pee out of an old wool blanket I purchased on ebay for $18.26 (that price includes the shipping.) Ebay is an excellent source for finding recyclable materials. Once I had reminded myself of the basic geometry of a perfect triangle I began cutting and constructing my hexagon blanket. I even reused the binding of the original blanket on the edges. I might decorate this blanket in a cute way at a later date.

I hope this will inspire you with your own tee pee! The Land of Nod & Magic Cabin have lovely teepee's for sale. And if you would like to make a smaller scale teepee here is the cutest little teepee on LoLovie her teepee is made from a tutorial on Pink Toes and Power Tools.