Fort! I mean... writing cave...

I ran across a thread on the NaNoWriMo forums about writing caves. Basically, a fancy term for a fort to write in. And of course I couldn't NOT do this!

I sleep on the bottom bunk. It's already cave like and it's not a far stretch to imagine it as a fort. But it had to be something easy to put up and take down. And so I took this challenge upon myself, and a fort was born!

First off, this is my bed in all its messy glory:

Yeah, I'm a slob. Though to be fair, even when I do make the bed, it still looks messy. Why? First off, normal sheets don't fit quite right on a squashy futon mattress. Secondly, the bed is full sized, but my comforter and any of the blankets I've knit for myself are twin sized. They're from my old bed. What can I say, I like my old comforter too much to get rid of it.


Back to fort making, I knew for sure I had one thing that would be big enough to cover a side: A small blanket that I'd knitted which was pretty much only good for covering the foot of the bed. That would cover one end of the bed. I went through my drawers and gathered up old PJs that no longer fit or I just didn't like anymore. I tried lots of things to cover the sides with these, even going so far as attempting to create a "clothes line" type thing from yarn. It didn't work.

Went looking through my craft supplies I keep in the basement. I knew I had some old fabric from when I'd gone through a brief sewing interest period. It was big and orange, and I'd probably never use it. Luckily, and surprisingly, it was big enough to mostly cover the long side of the bed. You can't really tell from that photo up there, but the top bunk is only twin sized, which means that my bed sticks out from under it some.

It wasn't a perfect fit of course, there was space on either side that would need to be filled. An old nightgown and my shawl filled that.

Now for that pesky third side. I was pretty much out of things to put up. BUT I had a closet, most of which I hardly ever wear. And more importantly, these clothes were on hangers. So that third side was covered by shirts on hangers.

And so the finished fort:



And the inside:



Yeah, that's my knee. I'm laying down with my head on the pillow.

The only hard thing to put up and take down is the blue blanket since it's tied in place. Everything else is ridiculously simple. Currently everything is wrapped up in the orange cloth and is under my bed. November will be fun!