Customer Reviews

Tipis & Yurts: Authentic Designs for Circular Shelters

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a classic coffee table tent book, all flashy pictures and no content. Please don't buy this book if you want detailed information on building either of these tents. The info on tipi's is sparse and you will struggle severly. The yurt is a joke, made from 2 x 2 soft wood and angle iron. For Tipis read the Laubin book, excellent! For yurts surf the web.

I can only speak to the section of the book about tipis. Having used the Laubin tipi book for 25 years, I have to say that the book in question is filled with incomplete and wrongheaded information. The pictures show a tipi that is poorly constructed, not fully pitched, incorrectly sited, and without a liner or furnishings--a flapping, wrinkled, miserable-looking shell. The methods the author has devised for staking the tipi are laughable: completely different from the traditional methods, needlessly complicated and ineffective. I guessed that these methods would result in a tipi that can not withstand a strong wind, and in fact, the author admits that her tipi has started to collapse in a strong windstorm!! In contrast, the Laubins' tipis have withstood hurricane force winds, because they used traditional methods, which are simple and work beautifully. Otherwise, the plains Indians would have died out long ago. Although she lists the excellent Laubin book in her bibiography, I doubt very much the author has read it herself. This author seems to have pulled many methods out of thin air. She has eliminated a small but important element in tipi design (smoke flap gores), seems ignorant about how to handle the smoke flaps to keep out rain, and does not know how to make a tipi livable. DO NOT TRUST THIS BOOK!

I understand what it is to be a new tentmaker, but this book puts very haphazard designs out as if the author is an expert. I agree--read Laubin for tipis (the best I've seen yet)--for yurts try Torvald Faegre's 'TENTS--ARCHITECTURE OF THE NOMADS' or anything by Peter Alford Andrews. Don't buy this book--if it could bark, it would.

I understand what it is to be a new tentmaker, but this book puts very haphazard designs out as if the author is an expert. I agree--read Laubin for tipis (the best I've seen yet)--for yurts try Torvald Faegre's 'TENTS--ARCHITECTURE OF THE NOMADS' or anything by Peter Alford Andrews. Don't buy this book--if it could bark, it would.

This is the strangest tipi book I have ever come across!

The author give such useful hints about sewing machines and how to sew the fabric strips together that I am more than surprised that her own tipi is such a horribly poor show! Didn't her editor at the publishing house have the courage to tell the author about this discrepancy??

I mean, she seems to be an experienced seamstress and also can relate her sewing knowledge to the reader -- a feature all other tipi book authors have failed to communicate successfully. While Laubin simply recommends a flat seam and find an awning maker to do the job; and while Linda Holley's new book doesn't make the easiest reading when it comes to sewing together all the tipi parts, Blue Evening Star provides the novice tipi maker with most important basics. These basics are the best I have found in any tipi book -- I have found them only in this book!

Of course, you cannot learn much from this book how a tipi should look when set up, so anyone seriously interested in making tipis should have the Laubin book, with all its merits and shortcomings!

I had built a yurt and also a tipi before I ever saw this book. I wished that I had read this book before I ever built! Especially the yurt design.... it is a very simple and strong design. If I were to build another one, these are the plans I would follow! The woman who wrote this book deserves alot of credit.

I found this book to be very helpful, and full of practical information about building Tipis and Yurts. The designs are not exact replicas of the traditional structures, but have been modified using canvas instead of skins, and 1x2's for the yurt walls. This makes them applicable for a wide variety of modern uses, and easy to construct for the average person. The designs are well thought out, and the instructions are simple to follow. I guess if you want an EXACT replica of a Sioux Tipi, or a Mongolian Yurt, then you might not be pleased with this book. If you are like me however, and don't want to fool around with skinning animals or foraging for 150 identically-sized sapplings for your Yurt walls..... and simply want to build a cool structure using materials that you can buy locally, then this book is great!

You may be fooled by the beautiful backgrounds, but if you want to build a yurt that can be lived in this is NOT the book for you. Details are sketchy, yurts and tents are not set up well, and patterns shown are non historical. Visually beautiful, but non informative.