Along about March of last year some folks name of Thommy, Annie and Jeb bought a particular tipi (because the Whole Earth Catalog said it was the best readymade one available) and set out to do some serious tipi dwelling. Six months of continuous living in that tent later, those three folks were—to put it mildly—more than somewhat discouraged. The grommets were ripping out, some seams had come unraveled and the whole miserable structure was proving less than optimum for the rains, snows and zero degree weather of Oregon's coastal winter. The tipi—built to the traditional Sioux pattern—was a thing of beauty, but it certainly wasn't hacking it as a year-round living quarters.
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At that point, luckily, a little old sailmaker chanced to pass by the tent. He sat for awhile and then he said, "This beautiful dwelling could be made better, much better. My lifestyle could be made better, much better. Together, we can improve both."
So Thommy and Annie and Jeb adopted Cliff Cox and combined their first-hand knowledge of tipi living with his 34 years of canvas-working experience. And the results have been very good indeed.
Nomadics, as the tribe decided to call itself, now produces undoubtedly the finest manufactured tipi available. They use only the best materials (double fill canvas, Permasol and Acrilon double-sewed with Dacron thread in a sailmaker's lock stitch that positively won't unravel. They reinforce every possible stress point on the surface of their design's cover and liner. The peg loops they put on the Nomadics tipis are about five times as strong as the grommets used on other makes and the tribe "button hole" stitches every pinning hole up the front of their tents instead of using the faster, cheaper (and weaker) grommets there.
The Nomadics gang retained the exquisitely lovely basic Sioux tipi pattern, but they added the longer and more efficient Cheyenne smoke flap extensions and redesigned the tent liner to provide increased insulation and warmth. They also came up with a much better door flap and countless other small but noteable improvements that only folks who actually live in a tipi would think of.
