An Historic Tent: How I Made It

Making a tarp shelter using hand sewing sailmaking techniques was a fun project that has provided a portable shelter for many years to come. The final tarp is 140” long x 116” wide. I have stitched over 114 feet of stitching total with approximately 4600 stitches total. Its total weight is 9.6 pounds.

Forgive the lack of historical clothing in this one-I don’t have a set to use and the amount of time it takes to make my living room look historical meant that the video would have taken even more time. One day I hope to be able to have a place of my own that I can film in without regard for the modern world.

It took about two hours each per long seam and about 20 hours total, spread out in 2-3 hour increments over several weeks, to get it done. None of this is complex but it does get tedious. Still, there is something soothing about the repetitive nature of it.

I gained a lot of knowledge and inspiration from what is known as the Military Tent Article by some phenomenal historians. Please give it a look!

https://www.scribd.com/document/28757...

Timeline:
00:00 - Intro
00:36 - Material Selection
01:40 - Tools Needed
03:21 - Laying Out the First Seams
06:08 - Starting the Stitch
09:44 - Changing Threads
12:32 - Ending the Seam
14:27 - Joining the Two Panels
15:49 - Binding the Edges
16:21 - Binding the Bottom Seams
18:38 - Grommets
29:29 - Waterproofing (or lack thereof)
32:16 - That's a Tent!

The photo of the extant sail piece was provided courtesy of Matt Brenckle, Hat Maker to the Stars.

Music (Salt Creek) courtesy The Rogue Bluegrass Band.

The traditional Deerskin Diary music is courtesy D. Wiggins.