Patsy,

I built a cedar strip canoe using plans from Kirk Kirpatrick's book "Building a Strip Canoe" and have since built a stich and glue kayak. Kirkbatrick's book has plans for eight different models. He has simplified the strip building method to make it practical for a first time builder to end up with a good functional canoe that is still very attractive. I found his method reasonable for my first boat building project and not any more difficult than S&G but it was more time consuming. You might want to take a look at the book (since it cost less than $10.00) before committing to stitch and glue. My canoe ended up costing me about $600 and it took nine months to build.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0899331181/qid=1006966529/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_24_1/107-5840575-5925330

CLC has kits for a plywood canoe call the Sassafras.

http://www.clcboats.com/