First two night hanging!

First let me thank everyone here for all the info I've gained through lurking over the past several months. I plan to start doing some backpacking this year and have started acquiring some gear towards that goal over the winter. I am trying to do this on a budget and I'm a sucker for a good deal.

Last fall I ordered a HH from their odds and end sale. At that time played with it a bit, got it cleaned up and modified the suspension.

The modified suspension includes adding a CAMP nano biner to one end of the tree huggers and a pair of strong (heavy) welded rings from Lowes to the other with a larks head. A garda hitch was used with the stock line. This seemed to work well in testing. I plan to replace the heavy rings with lighter descending rings as some point and maybe the stock line with thinner high-performance line as well.

This weekend we had some decent weather and I decided to hang overnight for the first time in my back yard.

Night One

Setup
My though was to use an ATTH I got from this thread as a weather shield that would hold an extra sleeping bad to the bottom as insulation. I would use a 40* down bag as a top quilt.

Finding the best way to keep the ATTH sung to the bottom and side profile of the asym hammock was a little challenging as well as trying to keep the sleeping bag from sliding down and bunching up. I ended up wrapping a velcro zipper guard around the head end hammock suspension to keep the bag from sliding down.

The length between supports (on a wooden play-set), although enough for the hammock, was too short for the HH fly to attach as intended. I ended up attaching to the carabiners which worked ok, but was just a tad loose.

Performance
Without any type of elastic suspending the ATTH I had to slide it out of the way to enter and did the best I could to slide it back in place afterwards. During the night, the temp dropped from 62* to 58* w/ a 6 mph wind and my bottom side started to get chilled. I put on a hat and pulled up my legs a couple of time during the night. I don't think the sleeping bag reached all the way to my feet and did not stay in place well. In the morning there was a little moisture between the ATTH and the sleeping bag.

Thoughts
I need to find a better way to keep my back side warm.

Night Two

Setup
This time I used a insulmat max-thermo (long) in the hammock I had acquired for ground dwelling. I put the top side down since I through it would minimize sliding that way. Being long it is pretty snug when put in the hammock asymmetrically.

It was pretty windy during the day so the loose HH tarp was flapping quite a bit. I decided to try the ATTH as a tarp. My original plan was to pitch it on the diagonal like the stock HH tarp, but I did not have enough length so I used it A-frame. In this configuration it didn't add as much extra coverage as I had hoped. It held up well and my MYOG tensioners worked well in the gusty conditions.

Performance
It was a little difficult getting positioned with the insulmat under me in the correct position so I ended up pretty much on axis instead of asym. When I woke up I had slid down towards the center of the hammock. I repositioned off-axis and did not have that problem again. My elbows and feet slid off the mummy pad a number of time but over I was warmer. However this may have been due to the temperature as well, since when I checked, it was a constant 67* with 5-10 mph winds.

Thoughts
The insulmat looks like the way to go for now since it is smaller, lighter and seems to work as well, but I will need to see how it performs at lower temperatures. I may also want to add some wings if width becomes a problem.

Questions
How important is having the rings covered by the tarp?
Should I seriously consider one of the thinner high-performance lines for suspension?

ToDo
Investigate other UC options, thermadrape? Modifying HH tarp as UC?
Investigate bigger tarp options, silnylon, MYOG?
Modify HH bag into a bishop bag.
Modify pack cover to work as a gear hammock.

Any comments or suggestions welcome...