Hammock Tutorial

February 18, 2011

This project is a basic sewing project that doesn’t take long, so you can be outside relaxing as quickly as possible.

Things you need:

6×9 foot canvas drop cloth

heavy duty thread and needle for your sewing machine

19 feet of clothesline

1 piece of 1x4x6 wood (cut in half to make two 3 foot pieces)

Optional Supplies

Freezer paper

Craft paint and foam brush

Instructions

1 . Remove the drop cloth from the package and iron it really well. Using a lot of water may help get out the creases from being packaged. After I finished ironing the drop cloth, my mom said she’s heard mixing water and vinegar to spray on fabric will help release wrinkles, so you may want to try that too.

2. Fold the drop cloth in half, lengthwise so it is now 3 feet by 9 feet. Crease the fold with an iron.

3. Cut a stencil out of freezer paper. I decided to use the word relax. I traced the letters onto the freezer paper and cut out the letters. Keep any small pieces you need to replace in the stencil before painting (like in the e and a). Iron the freezer paper to the drop cloth.

4. Use a foam brush to apply paint to the stencil. Brush away from the edges to minimize bleeding under the freezer paper. Be sure to open up the drop cloth and place a protective barrier under the side you plan to paint. The paint may bleed a bit through the top layer.

5. Wait until the paint dries and apply a second coat, if necessary. After all coats fully dry, remove the freezer paper. Or, if you are impatient like me, go ahead and pull off the freezer paper while it is still wet, just know you will end up with a lot of paint on your hands.

6. Fold the drop cloth lengthwise with the right sides together (if you didn’t wait for the paint to dry in the previous step…wait for that before moving to this one).

7. Stitch along the long side from the top to the bottom. Sew as close to the finished seem as possible.

8. Turn the drop cloth back so the right sides face out again.

9. Run clothesline along the inside of the drop cloth. You will need one 10 foot piece for each side, but doing one at a time is easiest. Line the clothesline with the sides of the drop cloth and tie a knot where the clothesline comes out of the top and bottom. This will help anchor it for you while you sew.

10. Stitch as close to the clothesline as possible, from one end of the drop cloth to the other. Repeat on the other long side of the drop cloth. This stitch forms the casing for the clothesline that runs up and down the sides of the hammock.

11. Cut the knots from the ends of the clothesline to make the next step easier to stitch.

12. Turn the short ends of the drop cloth back 4 inches to form a casing for the wood. Since the drop cloth already has a finished seam, you don’t have to worry about turning the end under.

13. Stitch all the way across, from one side to the other and sew through the clothesline and all. Be prepared to break some needles at this point. I used a pretty heavy one and broke a couple making this hammock. Go slow and hand turn the wheel if you need to when you get to the thick edges.

14. Measure about an inch from the end of the wood and cut out a notch so the rope does not slide. Cut a notch at each end of both pieces of wood so you have 4 notches total. This was easy to do using a hand saw and the split in my kitchen table as a makeshift sawhorse. Shhh…don’t tell my husband…I had all the sawdust cleaned up by the time he got home and he doesn’t really want to know that’s how I use his tools and the table.

15. Slide the wood into the casings at the top and bottom and string your rope. Be sure to use rope that will support the weight you plan to put on the hammock. The rope I used was good up to 90 lbs and since it is Katelyn’s hammock, she has some time before reaching that limit. Hang the hammock between two trees. We screwed eye hooks into these trees in our back yard and they work great with a hook to connect the hammocks.