So I just made my first hammock, out of ROBIC XL. It is comfy! And oh-so-light! However construction did not go as smoothly as it could have. I figured this first one would be a learning experience... time to learn a few things from some of you wise thread-injecting gurus.

Questions numbered for convenience:

1. I had a heckuva hard time getting the rolled hems right. The upper layers didn't want to stay lined up with the bottom layer, resulting in wrinkles and gaps after just a couple inches of sewing. On advice from this forum I bought a rolled hem guide (This one, off eBay) and that seemed to work OK, although it was maybe a bit too "thick" for the fabric. But I did not purchase the walking foot that had also been recommended. Would that have made the difference and allowed the layers to remain lined up while sewing? (I did try a couple variations of a "tab" of some sort to hold the fabric and pull it along behind the needle, which helped, but not completely. I also tried pre-folding and holding the fabric from the bottom, as it was fed toward the needle, and that helped some too. By the end I was wishing I had a third hand to hold the fabric straight out to the side, too.)

2. Related to #1... I had an especially difficult time sewing to the edges of the fabric. Reversing to start or finish a seam made it pucker up about 50% of the time. It was hard to hold down the reverse button while also keeping hold of the slippery fabric and guiding it. Again, I'm wondering if a walking foot would have made reversing, in particular, go more smoothly...?

3. I used a cutting wheel and a mat to cut my ROBIC. The edges very quickly started to unravel, despite careful handling. Should I have used some sort of hot knife or other melting-type cutter instead?

4. RSBTR recommends a size 90/14 needle. I dutifully bought a pack and used a new one. But some recommendations for thin, lightweight, coated fabrics said to use a "microtex" (sharp) needle (Schmetz chart, for example)... should this be the case for ROBIC and other fabrics we like to use for hammock projects? I could actually hear a tiny "pop" as the needle went through the fabric, and worried I was damaging it.

5. Related to #3... I wanted to rip and re-sew some of the uglier rolled seams, but I worried that I would be making extra holes the fabric couldn't support. Anyone had experience with re-sewing? Did the original holes disappear as the fibers rearranged themselves?