I had wanted an indoor teepee for ages and kept talking myself out of it. Every tutorial I found needed either a sewing machine or a hot glue gun, and I do not trust myself with either. So I set a challenge: build a teepee a small child could actually play in, using no sewing, no glue, and nothing in the house we did not already have. The answer turned out to be a duvet cover, a bundle of bamboo canes, and a ball of string. It took a wet afternoon to make and has been climbed in and out of ever since. Ages 2 and up.
What you need
- Five or six bamboo garden canes. Tall ones, around six feet, so the finished teepee is big enough to sit inside.
- A ball of string or garden twine.
- A duvet cover. A striped one is ideal, for a reason I will come to. Pick one that is the same pattern on both sides so all the woven fabric looks right.
- A matching pair of pillowcases, if the duvet set came with them, for the floor of the teepee.
- A short string of battery-powered fairy lights.
- Scissors.
Building the frame
Stand four bamboo canes up as a square base and gather them at the top. Tie them together near the top with string, wrapping it around and around the bundle until it holds firm. Spread the bottoms of the canes out into a square footprint so the whole thing stands on its own.
Add a fifth cane at the back. This is not for strength; it gives you an extra upright to weave the fabric around, which makes the weaving sit better. Leave a gap at the front between two canes as the doorway. To frame the door neatly, you can lash one short cane across the bottom of the doorway gap.
Wrap a little string around the sharp cut ends of each cane so nobody catches a hand on them.
Cutting the duvet cover
Here is where the stripes earn their keep. I cannot cut a straight line to save my life, so a striped duvet cover gives me lines to follow. Cut the closed bottom seam off the cover and set it aside. Then cut the cover into long strips, following the stripes as cutting guides. Cut along one edge of each tube of fabric so each strip opens out into one long, flat length of material.
A duvet cover gives a surprising amount of fabric. Both the front and back panels become strips, so one cover is plenty for a whole teepee.
Weaving the walls
This is the whole trick, and it is genuinely no-sew and no-glue. Start a strip of fabric near the top of the teepee and weave it in and out of the canes, going behind one, in front of the next, behind the next, all the way around. When you run out of one strip, tie the next strip onto the end of it and keep going.
Work down the frame, row by row, straightening each strip as you go. The weaving holds itself in place by tension, the way a basket does. When you reach the doorway, weave each side up to the door gap and stop, so the doorway stays open.
The weaving is slow. Set aside a couple of hours. It leaves small gaps between the strips, which I had worried about at first, but the gaps turn out to look good and let a bit of light through. Alternating the different stripe patterns as you weave gives the walls a patchwork look.
The floor and the lights
Lay the two matching pillowcases on the floor inside the teepee. With a standard duvet set, two pillows fit the base almost exactly, which makes a soft, matching floor with no extra effort.
For the finishing touch, wind a string of battery fairy lights around the doorway and up to the top point of the teepee. Tuck the battery pack into the woven fabric where a child will not pull on it. The lights turn the teepee from a daytime den into a glowing evening hideaway.
What happens next
Ours was claimed the moment it stood up. The first thing in was a teddy collection, then a blanket, then a stack of books, and a small child was set for the whole morning. It travels reasonably well, too: the frame can be untied and the fabric stays woven if you are gentle, so it has come along to visit family and been rebuilt in someone else’s living room.
The best discovery was the evening version. With the fairy lights on and the main room light off, the teepee glows from the inside, and it becomes the calmest place in the house. A child who resists bedtime will happily wind down inside a lit-up teepee with a book.
For another quiet activity that uses soft glowing light at the end of the day, our night time glow in the dark bowling turns plastic balls and glow sticks into a pre-bed light game. And for something to do inside the finished teepee, our free summer coloring pages are exactly the kind of quiet thing a small child will happily settle into a den with.