I don&#39;t mind the rat race but I could do with a little more cheese.

Thanks! I was so very happy to see it up. :)

The construction was pretty easy...

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reasdream.livejournal.com

ooooh pretty!

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Thanks! :)

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liadethornegge.livejournal.com

Oooherrr... sexy.

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Heehee, thanks! :)

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florentinescot.livejournal.com

plumb spiffy!

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Thanks! I'm excited about repaying the kindness of so many who have let me mooch off their shade. :)

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florentinescot.livejournal.com

I can so understand that! One day I'll have one too. Well, I've got one -- but it's not period ....

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danabren.livejournal.com

The courtesy you've shown by making it tall enough for normal people to walk through without needing to duck means that you will be blessed by angels.

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Aww. :) I dislike having to duck, too, and I'm only 5-1/2 feet tall.

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Oh, cuteness! I really, really need to make me one of those. They're dirt-simple, I just need to *do it*.

What did you use for your fabric? I don't have any canvas, but I have a metric butt-ton of 9 oz cotton twill - wonder if that would work, if I sprayed it with that Canvak stuff?

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I used 7oz cotton canvas which made the construction of the fly sooooo easy (aside from the occassional sewing goof).

murieldechimay (whose shade flies I based my design upon) uses cotton twill or duck for her flies, although I don't know what weight she uses. She hasn't waterproofed any of hers yet. I was under one of her flies at a very rainy Crusades a couple of years ago and we all managed to stay fairly dry.

I hope that the Canvak works. My fly is just under 150 sq feet and I purchased two gallons of Canvak from Cabelas. Most folks suggest at least one gallon per 100 square feet of material to be treated. Scott sprayed the fly this morning, let it dry for a few hours and then sprayed it again around 4pm. When we took down the fly at 9pm, it had gotten rained on. Unfortunately, I didn't think to check the grass beneath the fly to see if it was dry. If we get rained on at Storvik Novice Tourney next weekend, I'll let you know how the waterproofing did. ;)

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Cool, thanks for sharing your experience. :) The fly just looks so bloody easy, and it's so much nicer than a pop-up!

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It was really easy. I had trouble with the valance because I was being an idiot. But the rest of the assembly and finishing was a snap.

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What kind of seam did you use to join the two long pieces together? Flat-felled?

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Yep. I messed up the flat-fell seam on my first attempt and then I found this tutorial on Master Terafan Greydragon's site. Aside from a couple of places where my fabric bunched up, the seam looks pretty good.

I also flat-felled the valance to the roof, but that wound up looking ugly so I pulled that seam towards the inside of the shade and sewed another seam, which basically made that join look like a French seam. That had the side effect of shortening my valance's height by about three inches. D'oh! Oh well, that's what learning curves are for, right?

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Oooh - good tutorial on the flat-felled seam, thank you!

Hee! Yep, that's what learning curves are for.

Thanks for posting this - I'm really inspired!

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valkyr8.livejournal.com

I'm making shade flys out of 7 oz cotton/ poly twill and I don't spray them with anything. They aren't designed to keep people dry, just out of the sun. They'll keep the majority of weather off you, unless it's a downpour and then you are going to get wet.

I choose colored fabric as I have had issues with undyed plain cotton mildewing. The Canvak might help to prevent that but I haven't used it.

Your 9 oz cotton twill should work and if it is undyed, just seal it with the Canvak.

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Awesome - thanks for sharing your experience! :) I think that might be one of my summer projects, then!

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How hard is it to make the poles, given I've no real experience with tools? Because I really feel bad mooching off other people's shade at events, since there's no way I could get a pavilion of my own (or store it, or fit it in the car)- I'd like to make one that's got 5' poles and is thus just high enough to shade me while seated or napping at a day event, but the upright bits still manage to go into the station wagon all right. (I'm not even going to assume I could manage poles that would be in two pieces and fit together somehow, the way Panther has center poles with 'sleeves' on them. Nuh-uh.)

(We don't really get weather in SoCal, so all I'd really need would be to go buy a canvas tarp or two, right?)

Edited Date: 2009-06-14 01:51 am (UTC)

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dr-zrfq.livejournal.com

If you're in Caid, you may want to ask

cormac about the Poore House dayshade; it's very similar to this one.

(And yes, you do get weather in SoCal, just not the same types as around here [the DC FedroSplat]. Fire Season, to use an unfortunate example.)

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I'll definitely bug Cormac next time I see him. :)

(We do, but most of the weather I ever go out in is either 80 degrees or less and sunny or overcast and breezy, because I don't really have the outdoor-fu. I've somehow become allergic to most of the outdoor world in the last two years, and have yet to figure out why. Bah. Humbug.)

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Thanks!

We found 2"x2"x8' pressure-treated poles at the local home improvement store over in the deck and garden section of the lumber area. Scott cut the poles to length, but I've been able to get the employees to cut boards and poles to length for me. The next step was to drill holes in the ends for the pins. He cut bar stock -- sort of like rebar, but thinner and smooth -- into three inch or so sections and glued those into the holes. Voila, tent poles!

My original idea was to use wooden closet rods, but when we found the poles I had to use those.

Our next step will be to cut a ridge pole to length (it's a 10' wooden closet rod) so the back portion of the shade doesn't droop between the back poles. We'll also need to cut it in half and attach a metal sleeve in the middle. While we can fit eight foot poles in the Prius with minor discomfort, ten footers just won't fit. And unlike the Jeep, the Prius doesn't have a roof rack.

My friends used canvas painters tarps for their last shade fly and it worked really well until it was devoured by mildew.

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greta-k.livejournal.com

"My friends used canvas painters tarps for their last shade fly and it worked really well until it was devoured by mildew."

1) The mildew was a direct result of not being able to set it up to dry in a timely manner and

2) It now has a number of very pretty (and completely period) colors!

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Note to self: actually lay canvas out to dry after use on wet days. :)

(One person I camped with just invested in disposable painters' plastic for the flooring, since it was a once-yearly sort of camping trip and there was nowhere to lay things out to dry back home.)

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