It's that time of year again. When you've booked sites for the summer's upcoming trips, but it's still snowing outside your window. It's the time when the MYOG bug is at its most contagious. I, like many of you I'm sure, am busy creating new gear for myself and my partner.

To get myself back in the swing of things, I started out by making a new hammock. Until now, I've been sleeping in a ENO Doublenest with a homemade Fronkey style bugnet. I hate the process of putting on and taking off that bugnet, and no matter how tightly I cinch it those skitters always seem to find a way in. I've been wanting to make myself a slightly larger hammock with an integrated net. Plus, I was excited to make something out of that fancy new ROBIC fabric from RSBTR.

I ended up creating a 10' hammock out of the wide-width robin's egg blue ROBIC. For the bugnet, I used one of Dutch's long 2-way separating zippers so the net could be fully removed. The one thing I have left to do is to add the tie outs. I wanted to use pack hooks but forgot to order them so that can wait for now. I think it turned out pretty well, although there are a few things I would do differently next time.

Instead of the single long zipper I would use 2 separate separating zippers, one for each side. This would allow the triangles at each end of the hammock to be identical, and it would let you open the bugnet on either side of the hammock. Alternatively, I might just make the net zip off of one side only, sewing it directly to the other side to save a few grams and space. I would also add some elastic to the nylon triangles at each end of the hammock. As the triangle is now, it flaps around too much and doesn't hug the ridgeline and bugnet underneath it. (You can see what I mean in the second picture.)

Materials:



All in all, the hammock came out to 11.2 oz (including the net and ridgeline but no suspension).

Let me know what you think! I'm going to make another shortly for my partner, so I'd appreciate any suggestions for improvement.