Stevebo asked about what I use for a tarp. I made my own; standard tarps are going to be way too wide and probably not quite deep enough (or too deep/long and not wide enough, depending on how you are looking at it). I was worried about the side exposure, so I made a tarp with side walls (actually, I made 2 tarps, so my wife will have one too.) The teal (?) one was my first attempt, and I didn't get the sides matched up very well. I added little pouches on the sides so I could use trekking poles to keep the front part up - you can see what that looks like when pitched in the first picture with the dark blue tarp. Note that the picture of the teal tarp shows it pitched lower than I would actually do with the hammock - I had just made it when I took the picture, and wanted to see if how much coverage I could get.
The main part of the tarp was easy to make. I just got an XL width silpoly material from Ripstop or Dutchware (not the cheapest, but it stretches less than sil nylon) and sewed attachment points on the corners and in the middle where I wanted to have the tree attachment points. If you aren't too fussy about the tarp being perfectly taut that's all you have to do. You can do a catenary cut on the ends to get it to flap less, and if you really want to do it "right" you could do a catenary cut for the ridgeline, but then you have to seam seal the ridgeline, yada yada.
I may make myself a tarp without the sides to experiment with for when rain is less likely, since it would be lighter and WAY easier to make. The sides were a pain to align.
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