A few months back I posted a thread about making a large tarp. After multiple responses and looking through plenty of "blueprints" and youtube videos, I decided not to make one just yet. I moved on to making myself a better hammock. My double nest ENO just wasn't cutting it for me (doesn't help that I was terribly misjudging my hang angle). So I went over to RSBTR and picked up 15ft of 1.6 hyper D diamond. Right off the bat, when I opened up that shipment, I was blown away. I find that material to be FAR more comfortable than what I was laying in before.
Anyways, I got an extra foot for practicing roll hemming and about 20 minutes later I began working on my hammock. I kept the design simple. No asym hammock with zippers and pockets here, just a plain ol' hammock. Taking my time, I roll hemmed both long edges (about 11.5 to 12 ft) in about 45 minutes and had my end channels done about 30 minutes after that. Last second I decided I was capable of attaching the stuff sack and by some miracle it came out looking like a factory made hammock. Hemmed a small channel for a draw cord and called it a day. About as simple a project as I could've asked for, for about $30 with shipping.

hammock blue spring beach.jpg Blue springs, Madison County, Florida
blue spring runs.jpg Blue springs, Madison County, Florida
Mt woodson trail hang 4.jpg Blue springs, Madison County, Florida
JB hammock Blue Springs.jpg Blue springs, Madison County, Florida
Mt woodson trail hang 3.jpg Mt.Woodson Trail, Poway, California
Mt woodson trail hang 2.jpg Mt.Woodson Trail, Poway, California
Mt woodson trail hang.jpg Mt.Woodson Trail, Poway, California

Seeing how easy using a sewing machine was I decided to make a bug net. WAY more difficult . Only because of the delicacy of the material. I found a video on youtube that showed me exactly how and what to use. I basically followed that and made only one or two modifications. Here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQRoEpK-7SY . This guy killed it. Very thorough and very easy to follow. I am not nearly talented enough to sew the edges without pinning them together so I did that before anything. I think he free hands it in the video The most important modification for me was making a channel on the ends where the suspension exits the bug net. I camp mostly in Florida and I would swear these mosquitoes and gnats are smarter than your average high schooler. Threw a draw cord in it and it was an easy mod that bullet proofed this bug net for me.

Fast forward a couple months and I've already put a hand full of over-nighters on this hammock and well over 40 day hangs across Florida and a few in Southern California!! She still looks brand new. I have to say the material is very wear and stain resistant. On one hang, I had to climb up to a small ledge where a decent tree was growing. On the way up, I dragged my hand through a fire ant pile, dropped my hammock on rocky, sandy,muck ground. I jumped out of the tree as soon as I could, landing right on the hammock with my hiking boots on, and took off running for the river to get them all off. Let my hammock dry off and most all the sand and moss and muck fell off on its own, no tears.

After the first trip out (to my backyard), I knew this hammock had revolutionized my hammock experience
I genuinely feels as though my whole hammock camping experience is much more enjoyable now. My biggest issue now is finding trees that are the right distance apart. Thats not due to the hammock as much as it is to the whoopie slings however. Love this suspension but it does have that draw back
In the end, what I'm getting at here is that hammock camping rocks and FOR ALL THOSE CONSIDERING BUILDING A HAMMOCK, DO IT!!