Early last Fall, the kids in our youth group began making their own 11 foot hammocks out of Dutchwaregear's Hexon 1.6. None of them had ever before sewn fabric or spliced amsteel. The kids ranged in age from 10 to 18. At one point, I realized the morning after I had placed my latest fabric order that I had forgotten one child's order. Knowing Dutch's reputation for mailing your order out, the day before you place the order(!), I was worried it would be too late to get that missing four yards of Morrocan Blue Hexon added in to our order and I dreaded the added shipping charge of a separate order. When I called Dutchwaregear to see if they could change my order last minute, Carolyn and Dutch did me one better...they added in the missing fabric into my order and didn't even charge me for those four yards! They had heard about our project and wanted to help out! We were pinching every penny since many of the kids' families really could not afford to spend much on the project. We had already figured how we could make the hammocks, CL, SRL, and tree straps for $35 per hammock at Dutch's normal prices, but, his unexpected generosity helped us even more!
We wound up sewing 18 hammocks using 4 sewing machines. The kids were delighted with their new hammocks, but, unfortunately, we had completed them too late in the year to take them camping. The kids didn't yet have underquilts or pads, so we just went on a couple of day hangs and then waited out the winter. As soon as school was out for the summer, the kids were clamoring for a camping trip. We needed bug nets first, though! I contacted Dutch to see about buying netting and found out that he was temporarily out of stock of all netting as he had gotten a batch in that did not come up to his standards and he had scrapped an entire thousand yards. He was not going to be getting the replacement netting in time for us to make bug nets for our scheduled campout, but, he came to our rescue offering us 11 bug nets (3 Fronkey's and 8 summer socks) that had been made with the netting that didn't meet his high standards before he had realized there was a problem with that particular batch. Instead of scrapping them as he had originally intended, he donated them to us, telling us they would carry us through this campout which would give us more time to make sturdier ones once he had netting available again. And carried us through they did! I already had one Fronkey bug net that I had bought from Dutch years earlier and, thanks to my hammock hording, I had seven other hammocks with integrated nets to offer for kids to borrow once we ran out of the salvaged bugnets. Funny thing was, kids were turning down the offered Blackbird XLC's and Trail Lairs in favor of getting to sleep in their own DIY hammocks. I was beginning to worry that we would have to have a drawing to see who would have to only use their DIY hammocks for day while using one of my XLC's or TL's for night use! It worked out though! We had just enough kids volunteer, but not one extra volunteer!!! It meant the world to those kids to get to spend the night in the hammocks they had sewn themselves!
We had our campout at Stockton Lake. Thunderstorms were predicted for all day Friday--the morning we would be arriving. I had tarp coverage from my hammock horde to protect 9 hammocks...and ran out and bought cheapy small blue Walmart tarps and paracord to cover the other 9 hammocks...but the evening before our campout, the weather pattern shifted and our chances of rain plummeted to 5%! We decided to live risky and skip the tarps. Not a drop of rain fell the entire two days we were there! I'll be taking the unopened Walmart tarps back! We will try our hand at sewing up a few tarps and more bug nets before our next outing.
At the last minute, 19 kayaks were also made available to us to borrow, so their first ever hammock camping trip turned into a first ever kayaking adventure as well! Talk about fun!
The kids wanted to thank Dutch for all he has done to help them on this adventure. Some of our kids are in foster care. One of the older boys who has been shuttled between multiple foster homes most of his life, told me this was the first time he has ever gotten to camp. It may seem like just some fabric and bug nets, but it's not. It's a life experience that these kids will carry with them forever. Thank you, Dutch.
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Originally Posted by rais'n hammock
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