My backyard is currently under attack, and has probably been under attack for the last 50 years. What was once probably a cute little one foot wide wall of bamboo, is now a mini forest trying to overtake my backyard (and my soul). Seriously, it would not surprise me if I woke up impaled by a bamboo stalk that has come up though the floor, through my mattress, through my pillow, and right out of my eye socket; these little bastards are no joke.
On the up side of things, while trying to slowly reclaim my backyard and remove all of the dead bamboo, I decided to make Kennedy a little teepee from the stalks and a few randoms I had lying around the house. I will say that it took a little longer than I expected because I had to pull, trim, and cut each of the shoots down individually, but since I was already planning pulling them, it wasn’t too awful.

The process was fairly simple:

First you will need to prep the bamboo by pruning off all of the little branches and cutting all the bamboo to approximately the same height. I started by taking a thick piece of twine (anything rope-like is fine) and connecting three shoots together in a triangle. You can see the basic triangle in the photo above. From here, you will want to eyeball it to be sure that the triangle isn’t lopsided and is roughly the height that you were hoping for before moving on.

Then I started working my way in a circle, leaning the poles on the connected three. After I added quite a few shoots, I took another piece of twine and wove it between every few branches. From there, I kept adding more stalks until I had a one every 4-5 inches apart when looking at the floor (and yes, that is my daughter being a terror and dumping pine shavings all over the ground. Bless her heart).

From here, I wanted to make sure that it was sturdy enough to deal with a toddler. Once I realized that was an impossible dream, I found an old curtain and cut it into one long continuous strip that was roughly 6 inches wide. In order to do this, it’s easiest if you cut it in a similar fashion as the diagram below, but you can do it however makes you happiest.

I then took the long strip, cut it in half, and started weaving from top to bottom. I found it easiest if you folded the strip in half around the front poll, and then crossed them every few shoots. I did not weave every shoot, but I did try to weave different bunches with each pass so that they wouldn’t stay grouped together. Once finished, I found two old table clothes that I could use for the bottom half of the teepee wall. I used the bottom wrung of the woven fabric to hang the tablecloths from. I simply made a small 1/4 inch slot every foot or so and attached the tablecloth with the twine. I am sure this could be done much more gracefully with sewing buttonholes in the fabric and using something less stained, but I’m not trying to sell this to The Land of Nod, now am I. No.

Lastly, dig out those Holiday lights and something cozy to sit on and abracadabra, you too have a cozy little summer reading nook for the little. If you do decide to make one, send me pictures, or curse me out for my vague instructions. Either way, i’d love to see what you come up with.