My First Hammock

[Cstolworthy]

So after reading through the forums here for a while I felt like I had enough knowledge (and money) to give making a hammock a try.

I headed out to the local fabric store and bought 3 1/3 yards of 1.9oz ripstop nylon. I am making this hammock pretty closely to the specifications headchange4u outlined in his stickied post My Take On DIY Hennessy Hammock. A Tutorial.

However I am thinking I may alter it a little to do a gathered end hammock, but I am not totally decided on that.

I am trying to photograph the whole process from start to finish. Here are the results from night 1. Basically we just roll hemmed the edges. Not really all that exciting, but hey, you got to start somewhere!

More pics to come. (That is my wife lending me a hand with the sewing. This is my first experience and I am all thumbs so far!)

[PapaSmurf]

Good luck with it. Please keep the photos coming as you progress along.

BTW - I could sit on the floor with my legs crossed like that. As long as I had one of those Medical Alert buttons with me to get back up.

[Shug]

Atta Girl and Boy!!!
Way to get to it.......
Shug

[johnnypyro]

Good job! It's nice to know I am not alone in Utah

[chickenwing]

Great job! Love that color. my first DIY hammock was that same "kelley green" from Joann's. You will really enjoy it.

[zoovegroover]

I followed those instructions also and did the folded gathered ends as instructed. Then I decided to try the gathered end method and I actually like it better. Gathered end mean I can experiment with different suspension configurations and whipping methods w/o the risk of having to re-fold the ends every time I untie whipping to try something different. I made some Amsteel chain loops to whip the end, girth hitched to two descending rings/side and long straps with dutch clips for a really fast and easy set up. The ridge is paracord (I removed the core) and I also put cored paracord in the channels. Works really well. I got some zipper and no-see-um and will be installing the bug net next! Keep your wife away from your project unless you want to make one for yourself next...!!! My hammock is now my wife's and I have to now order more material for my own hammock!!

[jred]

Wow! All my wife did was laugh at me & invite her friends over to laugh

[Cstolworthy]

my wife laughed at me because I was excited that I successfully hemmed a pillow.

What can I say? I get a kick out of the little things in life

[GvilleDave]

I just finished a similar hammock but instead of folding and whipping the ends I did a WBBB style gathered end like Knotty demonstrates in this thread: http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/s...ad.php?t=15205

I love the way mine lays wide and flat. Good luck and I will look forward to seeing the finished product.

[Cstolworthy]

So what we did to finish up the hammock was to cut out strips of polypropolene webbing and attach them to the hammock. 13" off center as described in the My Take On DIY Hennessy Hammock. A Tutorial. post. Note that we did cut two strips of the same length and used the second strip on the inside of the hammock. This should help reinforce the stitching on the webbing.

I then folded up the ends and knotted them as described here: http://www.imrisk.com/testhammock/testhammock.htm

For now I am using polypropolene webbing as suspension since I didn't order my actual suspension in time!

For the bug netting I got 5.5 yards of tulle. We took it home, found the middle, folded it in half. Then we basically sewed up two sides, leaving the top open. On the top we created a channel, threaded some silk cord through it to create a drawstring. In the bottom of this we cut a small hole to feed the suspension straps through. Basically creating a kind of "sock". It seems to work really well.

I still need to get some photos of the finished product all set up. I will repost when I do!