Unit

Decription Quantity Where to get

Price

Tubes of Shoe Goo or Goop Walgreen's, K-

a: (these are the small ones, if you get the big 10 $2.50  mart
tubes, you only need 5) or Wal-mart

Any pharmacy, K-
b: Hot glue gun (Optional) 1 $8.00 
mart or Wal-mart

Big pack of glue sticks (for hot glue gun) Any pharmacy, K-
c: 2 $3.00 
(Optional) mart or Wal-mart

Ebay or
Military cordura canvas duffle bag or some sort
d: 1 $18.00  Army/Navy 
of reinforcment fabric
store

Any pharmacy, K-
e: Pack of sewing needles (Optional) 1 $3.00 
mart or Wal-mart

Any pharmacy, K-
f: Pack of sewing pins with a big round ends 1 $2.00 
mart or Wal-mart

Ebay or
g: Camouflage BDU Jacket (AND) 1 $10.00  Army/Navy 
store

Ebay or
h: Camouflage BDU Pants (OR) 1 $10.00  Army/Navy 
store

Ebay or
i: Olive drab flight suit  1 $25.00  Army/Navy 
store

Ebay or
j: Camouflage Boonie hat/BDU hat (OR) 1 $7.00  Army/Navy 
store

k: Camouflage Helmet Cover  1 $10.00 Ebay or

Army/Navy 
 store

K-mart or Wal-
l: Nylon Netting  1 $14.00
mart

Pack of Walgreen’s brand dental floss, non-

m: 2 $3.00 Walgreen's
waxed, non-scented (200 yds) (Optional)

Some
Powder dye packets of Rit-Dye (quantity
pharmacies, 
n: depends on how much used and different X $2.00 
K-mart or Wal-
colors)
mart

K-mart or Wal-
o: Can of Flat Black spray pant 2 $2.50 
mart

Gardening or
p: 8 (or so) yards of burlap (about 25 feet) 1 $7.00  hardware
store

Step 1: Cutting and dyeing your burlap

     Before everything, you want to cut and dye your burlap. If you went with the square type
burlap, cut equal length of it accordingly to how many colors you want to use. For example, if
you have 20 feet of burlap, and three colors you are using, you only really want to cut three, 5-
foot sections, and with the last 5 feet being the natural color burlap. You may however, want to
consider dying more of your base color than anything else. For instance, if you may wish to dye
8 feet of your base color, with only 4 feet of your other colors. Now, depending on which type of
suit form you want to have, you may desire to have the square type burlap, or the shredded type
burlap. This is not to say that the burlap can’t be shredded before attaching it to the suit. This is
the way I did it (you loose about half of your burlap if you use attach the square type strands on
the suit then shreed it). Before ever attaching any of the burlap to the suit, I cut a square about 18
inches by 22 inches and started to pull out all of the 18-inch horizontal strands. This gives you a
bunch of 18-inch strands, and a bunch of 22-inch strands. Keep doing it, and you got yourself a
veritable feast of shredded burlap that can be attached quite readily. You way the consequences
of ether shreeding the burlap before attaching it to the suit, or cutting it in squares then shreeding
it, but I have had no problems with ether burlap method. Important! If the netting needs to be
died because it is of a color that will stand out, you must do that now after dying the burlap and
before emptying the dye buckets.

     Another thing about the burlap method. Before you go about pulling out the strands for all of
the different colors, you might want to consider taking out your spray paint and adding more
colors to one particular color. Haha, I know I am confusing you here, so let me break it down for
you. When I was attaching the colored burlap to my last suit, I was faced with the dilemma of
blending the colors that I have chosen to have (and it will be your problem as well, when you are
at that part of the process) It came out kind of funny looking, so I decided to add some spray
paint to the mixture to blend in the colors and little better. Then I got this crazy idea. The next
time I make a suit, I will spray paint blobs of a different color onto the square burlap that I dyed.
This makes it so you have more then one color on one strand. This helps considerably when
blending. So, I suggest spray-painting blobs or big squiggly lines onto the big square pieces of
burlap. Here is a list of suggestions for different colors.
 

Light Green Dark green or olive drab

Dark Green Light green or olive drab

Tan Green or olive drab

Light brown Dark brown or tan

Brown Light brown or dark green

(This list does not limit the different colors you can use. Spray painting different colors on to the
burlap depends on what your base color is and what different colors that you are combining with
the suit, which you can read about here.)

     IMPORTANT!! READ BEFORE DYEING ANY BURLAP!! Nature has something like 2
million different shades of color that it can throw out in an environment at one given time.
Unfortunatly, Rit-Dye doesn't make 2 million shades of colors. Experiment. Buy some yellow
and green and mix the two. Instead of letting the burlap soak up all of the dark green color, take
some tan colored burlap and dunk it in the dark green dye and water for a few seconds than take
it out and dry it. Do whatever you can to get the desired colors for your environment.

Step 2: Getting the feel for your jacket, and determining the netting placement

     For those of you that didn’t read any of the other stuff I said about choosing BDU’s that are
larger than what you wear, go and read that now. After you have read all of that and have your
BDU’s, the first thing you want to do is put your BDU jacket on. Make sure it is comfortable and
roomy, and that when you rise your arms in the air, the jacket doesn’t come down to your elbow
or something. You want it to be so that the cuffs of the sleeve are still touching you’re a little bit
above your wrist. If you are making the suit with the netting all around the front part of the suit,
you may skip this part if you wish. Lye on the ground with the jacket on you elbows and knees.
Mark or note where the imaginary line on the jacket arm is before the fabric is touching the
ground (on the inside of both of your arms), and where the reinforcing canvas should be placed.
You don’t want the knots of the netting to be sewn into any place below the imaginary line that
you just marked, or where you are going to be putting your canvas. Now take off the jacket and
lay it out on an open space and flatten it out (You actualy may find it easier to skip to attaching
the canvas to the elbows now before applying the netting. Remember, the place where the
canvas reinforcments may not be where the extra fabric is on the actual jacket depending on how
you crawl).

     After that, stretch the netting out over the jacket and pin it down. Make sure that it is even and
not too overstretched. Also, make a visual inspection to see if there are any breaks in the netting.
If there are, just try to arrange it that that is the part were you will cut it off at or put a piece of
tape on it to remind you of it later. Important! All of these pictures give a rough outline of what
the netting should look like on the BDU's! Do NOT try to make everything look exactly like
them! Depending on the type of netting you used, and the size of your BDU's (and since I can
only estimate what it will be like when I draw them by hand) it may be different.
 
This is when you have to decide weather you want the netting on the front off the suit or not. If
you do, go to the second part of the next step skip this next part if you wish. If not, keep reading.

Step 3: (part 1) Cutting the netting to match the jacket

     What we need to do now is cut off the netting so that it covers the back, the sides, the
shoulders and the arms. Weather or not to cover all of the arm or simply cut it off a little bit
before the end of it is up to you, but personally, I would cut it off a little bit before the ends of
the arms so I have room to attach a pocket to that area. Also, the reason we want to have a little
bit extra on the shoulder region is so that it will lap over on the tops of the shoulder (don’t worry,
if you did this correctly it shouldn’t bother you when you are lying down). Be sure to leave about
an inch worth of space between the end of the cut and the actually knot, then burn the ends of the
nylon piece so that it doesn’t unravel. Remember, though, that just because the picture is what
mine looked like, yours may be different depending on the netting and or size of jacket that you
used. Use my picture as a guideline to what it may actually look like, however it doesn’t have to
look exactly like it. Make all the necessary cuts like the ones in the picture, however if you are
uncertain about how much netting to cut off, remember that you can always cut it off later if it
doesn’t work; you can’t really cut on the part you cut off. Also, note the cut around the armpit
area in the picture below. This is so that the netting does not restrict the range of movement that
the garment provides. You might have also noticed that there are loops on the sleaves of the
arms. These are thumb loops, loops that you put your thumbs in when you crawl. We will get
into those later.

Important!
Depending on where you put (or plan to put) the canvas on your elbows, the netting placement may be
different, and you may not wan to put a lot of netting on the shoulder area (becuase the hat will
probably cover that area).

 
 
 
 Step 3: (part 2) Cutting the netting to match the jacket

     If you want the netting to cover the front of the jacket as well, make a cut like the one shown
above. Be sure to leave enough netting for it to wrap around the arms and torso. If you cut this
correctly, you won’t need another piece of netting to cover the front, and you will be able to use
the pockets in the front of the jacket. Also, note the cut around the armpit area. This is so that the
netting does not restrict the range of movement that the garment provides. Be sure to leave about
an inch worth of space between the end of the cut and the actually knot, then burn the ends of the
nylon piece so that it doesn’t unravel.

     After all the proper cuts have been made, pin down the remaining section again (for both
types of suits). This is basically how the netting is going to be attached to the back sections of the
jacket. Take a permanent marker and put a little dot under where the knot would be placed
(around the parameters). Don’t worry about the parts of the netting were you would have to wrap
around the arms or torso area just yet. All you need to do is the back part of the jacket.
 
 
 
 Step 3: (part 3) Cutting the netting to match the Flight suit

     First thing you want to do is put on the Flight suit on. Make sure you still have freedom of
movement even with pants and a shirt on. Get down on your elbows and knees and take a look at
where the canvas should be placed according to where your elbows touch the ground (You
actualy may find it easier to skip to attaching the canvas to the elbows now before applying
the netting). After all that is done, lay the Flight suit out flat on the ground and place the netting
over it like shown in the picture below (depending on how wide and long the netting is, you may
not have to put the netting down over the Flight suit as shown below).
    The general idea is that we want to cover the whole backside of the Flight suit, and the arms
and legs. Once you have put the netting over the Flight suit, pin in down and stretch it out. Make
all the neccisary cuts like the one in the picture below. Notice the cut around the zippered boot
pocket. You don't want to sew or glue anything covering that area (since there are very little
pockets you will have once you've attached the canvas, this is one of the only ones you will get).
Pin down the netting and stretch in out again. Time to take out a permanant marker and put a
little dot below all of the knots on the Flight suit, including the arms and legs.
 
 
 
 Step 3: (part 4) Cutting the netting to make a poncho (Bushrag)

     This part is modeled after a kit that can be bought from http://www.bushrag.com/. The kit
comes with 4.5 lbs or differently colored burlap, a belt, netting for the hat and torso area, and
instructions on how to complete the suit. If you don't want to spend a lot of money, time and
effort on making a suit with the BDU's or Flight suit, this website has the best camouflage
system for the price.

     The best feature about this type of a suit is that it is reversable, and infinatly adaptable. You
put lighter colors on one side of the net, and darker colors on the other side, and you have a
poncho that can adapt into desert lands and forest lands. Plus, any of those strips can be pulled to
the other side if you want to blend in another color! That means you can mix the browns with the
greens, and the greens with the tans! This makes this type of suit extremly adaptable to almost
any environment. The only downside of this type of suit is that is cannot be used for crawling,
but if you need cover ground quickly and than lay down in your position, it is one of the best
configurations. It can also be taken off and used as a cover.

     What we are going to do here is cut out a certain length from the netting. It can be as wide, or
as long as you want; totaly depending on how much of your body you want to cover. If you only
want to cover your torso to your waist, cut it smaller and narrower. It you want it to cover most
of your arms and down to your knee's, cut it longer and wider. It's solely on how much coverage
you want on your suit. After you have figured out how much coverage you want, you want to lay
the netting out on the ground and find the center of it. You than want to cut a small opening in
the netting for your head to fit through. Important! You only want to cut enough netting to let
your head through! You want the poncho to be tight around your neck, not sagging. Since you
don't have a base to work with (this netting is your base) you can skip everything and go strait
to attaching the netting to the Boonie/BDU/helmit cover.
 
 
 
 Step 4: Preparing and ataching the netting to the jacket or Flight suit

     You must now sew in (or glue on) the parimeter of the netting, like in the picture shown
above (in red). But you don't want the sags, that is, you don't want to be able to pull the netting
over about 1 inch from the base material. So you want to have an assortmants of knots in the
middle too. Also, you can get the exact same desired effect with the Shoe Goo or Goop instead
of sewing the knots. It may pull off if you pull hard enough on it, but it will generaly stay on.
(remember I am using the picture above to show you what sewing or glueing around the
perimeter means, you may have the other type of BDU suit with the netting in the front). After
you have put the little dot under where the knot is, get your needle and dental floss out. Pull out
about an arms distance, or approximately 25 inches of floss. Thread the needle with it and put the
needle and equal distance of the floss on both sides.
 
 
 

What you need to do now is make a knot at the end of the floss. The easiest way I know to do
this is to wrap the ends around your finger with about a ½ to an inch worth of slack and pull the
loop of your finger. Put the end into the hole and pull it through. You want to know make
another knot directly on top of that knot using the same procedure as mentioned above.

     Now you have a correctly threaded needle to work with. With part of the jacket still pined
down (most of it actually, except for the area that you will be working on) push the needle under
the first dot to the left side and the first knot of the netting and start sewing. After about 12 or so
in and outs (6 from the inside of the jacket, 6 from the outside) or until a nice white clump of
dental floss starts forming, stop sewing when you get to the inside of the jacket again. Now, this
part is very important. This part guarantees that this knot will not unravel. What you need to do
is stick the needle under the big clump of dental floss already sewn into the fabric. After you
have stuck the needle through, run it through the loop you just made and pull it tight.
 
 

Do that twice. Then wrap the needle around the floss once and put your finger on it and the
inside of the fabric and pull the needle through making a close knot on the floss near the sewn in
part. Then cut off the floss right after that knot.

     Do this with all of the knots in red, and a couple in the middle (or glue it instead). Try to
make this fun though, don’t just sit there and look sad. Turn on some music or the TV; try to
make it interesting for yourself. If you only do 10 knots a day, you’ll be done before you know it.
Make it a habit to do it right when you get home and it will (believe it or not) get done in time.

     After you finished the back area of the jacket and are starting on the shoulders and arms,
periodically stretch out the netting and pin it down to see how the netting will sew onto the fabric
and make the necessary adjustments. Remember, the knot doesn’t absolutely HAVE to go on the
dot you made for it. You want to the netting to be flat with the fabric and vice versa, not a
crumpled up piece of jacket and netting.
     After all of the knots have been made for the back, shoulder, and arm areas, time to spread out
the jacket and make the dots for all the other pieces of netting. Start with the ones on the sides,
they are the easiest to complete for both of the types of ghillie suits. Now, to do the shoulders
and the upper arms are going to be a bit trickier then just sewing it. Put the jacket on and take a
look in the mirror. Grab a hold on the netting on the shoulder area and pull it over where it
should be. Take that marker and put a dot to wear you think would be a good place to put in
netting when you stretch it out. Do that for a couple of knots and on both shoulders. Than take it
off and start the whole process of sewing (or glueing) all over again, this time completing the
shoulder area and upper arms.

     After all is said and done, and all of the knots on the jacket are complete, put it on and try it
out! If you are making the suit without the netting in the front, lye down with it on and see how it
feels. If you did it right, there shouldn’t be any knots jamming you in any part of the body.
Congratulations! You have finished the jacket. Take it off and lay it on the ground. Inspect the
netting and make sure there are not breaks in them or cuts in them. If there is (I know my damn
cat chewed one or two of them in the middle when I had it out), then you need to cut an extra
piece of netting off (only one strand with a knot on each end will do) and sew it near the area of
damage, creating a nice little "patch". Be sure to seal the ends of the cuts with a candle and flame
so it doesn’t unravel.

Step 5: (part 1) Preparing and ataching the netting to the pants

     Time to go onto the BDU pants (after what you did with the jacket, this thing is a breeze; took
me only 3 days to complete it). First things first, you want to wear the BDU pants with the jacket
that you just completed and stand in front of the mirror. Note and mark where the jacket overlaps
and ends and where the pants begin. You want to start you sewing about an inch above that mark
(also, if your making the crawling suit, mark where it ends on the front too). If you are making a
suit with the netting in the front, you may skip reading this part if you wish.
 

     Now, lay the pants on the ground, and the netting on top of it (you really only need 3 knots
wide of the netting on each leg). Cut two square pieces of netting for the two leg. (Sorry, I
goofed on the actually size of the pants. The crotch area is a little bit lower than shown on the
picture, and the line connecting the two separate pieces of square netting is a piece of shoe lace
since the netting cannot stretch if connected. You may need two of this to cover the rear section
of the pants.) You may wish to cut the netting short of the end of the pants like in the picture, or
extend the netting to the bottom of the pants. It’s your decision and really doesn’t make much of
a difference except for personal choice (remember, however, that there will be strands of Burlap
on the netting). Spread out and pin down the netting on the pants and mark a dot under the knots
just like on the jacket and start sewing just like on the jacket. Since we are going to be putting
canvas on the front, it really wouldn’t make much sense to sew into the first level of the pockets
to spare them.
 Step 5: (part 1) Preparing and ataching the netting to the pants

     If you are making a suit with netting in the front, lay your BDU pants down on the ground
and the netting over them, only with a little bit more netting spanning out to the sides like shown
in the picture. How do you know how much netting to spare and how much to cut off? Pin down
the netting in the back and turn the thing around and stretch the netting to the front to see how
much you need (note, you don’t need full inner leg coverage). Then place the dots under the
knots on the fabric in the back of the pants. Like in the jacket, worry about the front part later. If
you want to still use the pockets, make sure you only sew the knot into the pockets first layer and
not all the way into the pants. Also, make the necessary cuts in the netting AFTER you have
sewn it all in. After you have sewn in the back part of the pants, wrap the front part around and
pin it down. Again, place the dots under the knots in the netting onto the fabric and continue
sewing.
 
 
 Step 6: Preparing and ataching the netting to the Boonie/BDU/helmit cover

     Now that you've completed everything, time to do the Boonie Hat/BDU hat/hemit cover. This
is a cinch compared to the labor you just completed on the jacket and pants or flight suit. In my
opinion, using a BDU hat is by far the easiest thing to use, since you don't have to worry about
the wide brim of the Boonie hat, and the awkwardness of the helmit cover. What we are going to
do is get a piece of cloth: a rag, and old cut-up BDU jacket or pants, or some GI Induvidual
Camo netting and cut off a piece to fit about 3/4 of the way around the Boonie hat/BDU
hat/helmit cover. You want this to come to around the shoulder level, almost like a cape like
effect.
     After you have the size down, you want to cut a piece of neeting to fit on the piece of cloth you just
made and glue or sew it on. You then want to sew or glue it to the back of the Boonie hat/BDU
hat/helmit cover like shown above. After that, cut another piece of netting to cover the Boonie hat/BDU
hat/helmit cover like shown below. After that, you only want to sew or glue in the netting on the top of
the Boonie hat/BDU hat/helmit cover like shown (in red) and keep the rest draping over.

     If you are making the Bushrag type poncho, then you might want to consider making two
BDU hats into ghillie hats; one of the hats for the darker colors, the other hat for the lighter
colors. I havn't quite found out a good way to make the hat reversable like the poncho, so this is
the best thing I can think of. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Important! For all garnmets!

     If you used the sewing method, take out the Shoe Goo or Goop now. Try to do this outside, in
a well ventilated area, preferably were the sun is shining. Just put a generous glob of the glue
over the knot area. Remember, your not trying to glue the knot to the fabric here, just protecting
the knot. Let the glue dry for about 30 minutes to an hour before going on to the next part and/or
garment. After everything is dry and settled, time to take the suit outside (preferably on the grass
or newspaper) and lay it down. Take out the flat black spray paint and put a dab on every knot of
netting on the jacket, pants, and hat. Let dry for about 10 minutes, then come back and put
another coat on (remember, it’s better to have two or three coats then one big one).

Step 7: (part 1) Cutting and gluing the canvas to the front of the jacket and pants

     If you are making a suit with netting on the front of it, you may skip this part if you wish.
(This page may take a while for everything to load up, so be patient). After everything is dry, its
time to get your duffle bag out. Basically, you want to measure how much canvas you need to
cover the chest area, and the part of your arms without the netting first. For me, wearing a
Medium Long, the big chest area was about 23 inches by 10 inches, and the small chest area was
7 inches by 23 inches. If you have a Medium Long BDU jacket, then you don’t have to worry
about anything. You could look to the above picture for advice, and the below picture for the
measurements (I kind of goofed in the picture above. You don't really need the canvas to go
all the way to the sleeve, just enough to reinforce your elbow area, and you don't really
need that extra protruding flap that I have above and below as well).
     Now that you have the measurements for the jacket, measure the pants. It should start where
you marked it at (when you were wearing the jacket) and it should end about 6 inches below the
middle of your knee. It should also be about an inch away from the seam of the outside and
inside of the pants, so therefore it will slant slightly downward for each pant leg. For me,
wearing a Medium Long, the both of the leg pieces were about 28 inches for the two long sides,
8 inches for the longer width side, and 6 and a half inches for the shorter width side (refer to
picture). If you have a Medium Long BDU pants, then you don’t have to worry about anything
(along with the Medium Long BDU jacket). Next, you want to take the measurements for the
knee’s; the pieces of canvas that you will use to reinforce the legs at the knee. It doesn’t have to
be big, about 4 inches from the center of the knee each way and as wide as the big leg piece. My
knee pieces were 10 and a half inches for both the long sides, 8 inches for the longer width side,
and 6 and 3/4th inches on the shorter width side. Refer to the pictures for an example.
     After all your measurements, it’s time to cut the canvas duffle bag up. (NOTE: The people
at Snyder Creek sell already camouflaged 330d water resistant Cordura canvas, which is
perfect for the patches needed for a suit. It is BY FAR easier then the duffle bag method,
and at $14.95 a yard, it's MUCH cheaper and less aggrivating). Anyway's, if your the
adventurer type, don't worry. It may look a little weary, but if you do it correctly, there WILL be
enough canvas from the duffle bag to do the whole job, plus another chunk of it left over at the
end. It is the cutting and planning that makes this feat possible. Your duffle bag should look
something like the picture below (sorry, but the picture below is the largest I could get it).
     Now the first thing you want to do to this duffle bag is cut off that little flap at the opening.
This piece will be used for the extra canvas needed to reinforce your knee. Then you want to take
a seam cutter or a small knife/scissors and cut the thread holding the piece at the bottom of the
duffle bag.

     Once you’ve cut all the thread off (and the piece at the bottom), you should have an extra oval
piece of canvas and a big tube shaped duffle bag. Stash the oval piece of canvas with the other
one you have (for the extra canvas needed to reinforce your other knee). Now you want to find
the where the duffle bag was sewn together. Take some sharp scissors and cut the along the seam
to the left side of it. After you have completed that, go back to that seam you just cut, and cut
along the right side of it, separating it from the duffle bag canvas.

    You should now have a very long, thin piece of double stitched canvas. Put this aside with the
two other pieces of canvas. This piece will be used for the thumb loops that I will talk about
later. Now you should have a big flat piece of canvas, with a bunch of things stitched and
attached to it. Cut off shoulder straps and cut the seams from the fabric that it was stitched on.
    You basically want as much of a plain canvas surface as possible. Make the cuts for the two
chest pieces. Then cut the pieces for your arms making sure to take in consideration the long
pieces you will need for the legs (if you notice in my suit above, and some of the sketches that I
have, you'll see that I made a funny looking "L" shape for my arm peices, and I went right up to
the sleave. Do NOT do it this way! A simple square cut piece will be fine for elbow coverage,
and it's not neccisary to go all the way up to the sleave.) After those cuts, mark out where you
want to cut out the pieces for the legs, than go ahead and cut them off too.

     Now you should have 6 pieces of canvas that you just cut out. Take out the jacket and button
it up. Lay out the jacket and the pieces of canvas to where they should be, and see if everything
fits into place. If everything looks good, and it all fits, mark where the canvas will be placed on,
all the way around it. Now it’s time to take out the Shoe Goo or Goop. This is where you will use
so much of this stuff. First thing you have to do, is remove all of the buttons from all of the
pockets, and then proceed to put little dabs of glue on the pocket flaps to keep them down and
out of the way. Let that dry, and you should have all the pockets flat with the jacket.  Now, you
don’t really have to glue the canvas to the jacket, you could sew it with dental floss and triple
stitch the thing and it would work just as good. But after all the damn sewing you did (over the
past month I would think) I think that you would never want to see another needle again. Now,
this is how you are going to glue the canvas. This Shoe Goo/Goop is an amazing thing. It can
hold this like liquid steel, but it can’t last sticky very long. Meaning, what your going to have to
do is start by putting a beam of glue on the two short parts of the canvas (and a couple of dots of
glue all over the middle of the canvas), and press it down onto the spot you marked earlier and
not try to do the whole thing, or else the bead you started earlier will be almost dry (I know, its
happened to me). Hold it for about a minute, or get something flat and heavy to place on it. Then
take the glue and make a beam all around the long sides of the canvas and press it down on the
jacket. This time, you might need to get something heavy and flat. Old VCR videotapes work
well for this purpose. You may need to break out and another tube of Shoe Goo or Goop to finish
this piece (that why you need so many of them, but it is well worth it). After that piece is dry
(should take about an hour) go to the next piece and repeat the process above. After that, you are
ready for the arm pieces. Again, mark were the pieces will go. For these pieces, however, you
don’t need the same procedure as above. All you need to do is put a beam on all of the ends of
the canvas (and the a couple of dots in the middle) and press it down on the marks you made
earlier. Use some VCR tapes and a weight to hold the two pieces down. While these pieces are
drying, lets move onto the pants.

     First, mark were you need to place both of the pieces on the legs. Then use the same
procedure as you did with the chest pieces with these pieces. After they are dry (give them about
an hour or so) take out the other canvas pieces that you have been saving and place them over the
area in which the knee’s are, and mark it. Then use the same procedure you used with the arm
pieces. Let it dry for about another hour, then take out the hot glue gun and its glue sticks. Put a
stick in and plug the gun in. It will take about a minute for it to warm up, and after it is ready to
use, put a small line of glue over the edges of all of the canvas pieces. Let it dry, for a little bit,
than inspect it more closely to see if you missed any edges. That’s enough work for today, let the
glue dry and the canvas to settle and come back tomorrow.

     After everything is dry and settled, time to take the suit outside (preferably on the grass or
newspaper) and lay it down. Take out the flat black spray paint and spray paint the hot glue on
the edges of the canvas. Let dry for about 10 minutes, then come back and apply another coat of
paint. After about two or three coats of paint, let the whole mess get some air circulation and
time to de-fumigate.

Step 8: Attaching the burlap to the suit

     You made it this far! Time to start attaching the Burlap to the netting. This can be a long
process in it self, and is certainly back breaking. I recommend you get a comfortable place to do
this on, like a table or something, and sit down. Basically, all you are doing is tying the strands
of burlap to the sides of the netting. It is more complicated once you start worrying about the
color coordination, so I am going to make it simpler for you.

     Every ghillie suit should have what I’d like to call, a base color. This is a color that is put on
first, and tied to every side of the netting. With this in mind, there are certain color combinations
based on which base color you choose. Obviously, if you were going to go into an environment
with a lot of greens, you would want some sort of green your base color. Likewise with brown or
tan or any other color. A general rule of thumb for colors is:

Desert Tan
Forest Green
Snow White
Urban Green and gray

     Remember, this is just a base color. Depending on what type of forest you are going to be in,
you may want to choose different colors. Certainly, forest environments have the most variety of
colors. Some have a think ground, full with vegetation and fallen trees and plants, and some are
relatively bare with scattered grayish trees. If you know which area you are operating in, you can
predict what kinds of other colors you want. A very easy way of doing this is to go into the
environment you will be using this suit mostly in, and take a picture of the natural vegitation.
Then pick out the most prevalent color in the photgraph, followed by the two or three other
colors that you want to use, and try to match up the color as best as you can with the Rit-Dye.

     However, if your like the rest of us, and don’t really know, here are a list of color
combinations depending on what type of environment you are in, what time of the year it is, and
which blends are acceptable for a wide variety of environments. You basically only want to have
about 2, 3, or 4 different types of color. The only color you want to avoid at all costs is black.
Never, ever, dye anything black. Or for that matter, forget about what you’ve ever thought about
before about the color black and its relation with the environment. Let me explain. I bet you
think that if you are going to be stalking around at night that your obvious choice of color would
be black; shirt, pants, cap, whatever. WRONG! You never want to be wearing black, night or
day. With the exception of a totally darkened room (which in the that case, no color would
matter), black stands out terribly once your eyes have adjusted to the light difference at night.
This may be hard for some of you to accept, but its true. Why? To put it simply, nature has no
room for the color black. The ground is brown, the grass is green, and the sky takes on a purplish
tint at night. Forget 2D printed camouflage fabrics and their use of black. Those blacks are put
there to mimic natural shadows, which we will already be making with the 3D ghillie suit. With
that said and done, here is the list of possible color combinations for ghillie suit. But please
remember, these are just suggestions based on my personal experience and knowledge. You are
not limited to just these colors. Do what you want! If you want to go prancing around in a pink
ghillie suit, that’s fine by me. *laugh* But on a more serious note, remember that there are over
something like, 2 million different colors. Of course, Rit-Dye doesn't have that many colors, but
you use what you can find, or try to match visualy.
 
 

Forest Environment
Base color: light
Fall green
Other colors: reddish brown (more red than brown), dark green
 Base color: dark
Spring green
Other colors: brown, light green
Base color: light Other colors: white, gray (depending on snow, if no snow, use
Winter green spring)
Base color: light Other colors: light brown (or tan) and olive drab (or dark green
All-year  green with olive drab spray paint)
Snow Environment
Other colors: (with patches of, not all randomized and blended) 
All-year Base color: white gray (and/or) dark green
Urban Environment
Base color: green or dark Other colors: green/dark gray (depending on base)
All-year gray tan/brown
Desert Environment
All-year Base color: tan Other colors: (with sparing blends of) light brown or light green

     With that in mind, pick a base, and start attaching it to the suit. I have calculated, that you
only need about 18 strands of burlap for each side of a 3 ½ inch spaced netting without getting
what I like to call, a ghillie wookie. If you have less space between your netting, plug it into this
formula to figure out how much maximum burlap strands you can have for each side of the
netting, with X=the number of strands on each side of the netting.

18  X 
=
3½ length of space between knots

And solve it like a proportion. The point of making a ghillie suit is not to look like a guy wearing
a ghillie suit, a big bushed up, pile of burlap. The idea is to look like nothing. You do NOT want
to overkill on the burlap. That is why only 18 strands of burlap maximum limit for each side of
the netting will do. With that said, you would apply your base color to every side of the netting,
with two knots of 4 strands each. This gives you 10 more strands of room to add. You may want
less, depending on what you want to look like or for how much weight you would like it to be.
The base color should be whatever the general area of operation is. In my educated opinion, I
wanted a color that could be in almost any area in the United States, so I decided on a light green
color. Your can be whatever you want it to be. When attaching other colors besides your base
suit, however, you do not have to follow the 4 strand rule. You may get lazy, and start adding
more then 4, or you may want to add less to blend in the environment more.
     When you have finished with the base color (you will probably have some left over, save it
for later) start randomly putting other colors on. We are NOT trying to take away one pattern and
replace it with another one! The idea is make the colors blend in with each other, and not have
big blobs of color here and there. To get an idea of how to properly blend in the colors, take a
look at regular camouflaged BDU’s. Remember, this is just an idea maker, not a guideline. Also,
make sure to distribute the colors evenly as well, if you leave one particular color out of the
pants when you used it all up on the jacket, the pants are going to look differently when you
where them. The idea is to blend EVERYTHING together, the jacket/pants/hat are all the same
in this manner. After you have attached a generous amount of burlap to jacket/pants/hat, this
would be the time to do the blending. Don’t worry if the suit looks a little weird after you have
attached a lot of colors and burlap to it.

Step 9: Blending and spray painting the suit

     Don’t worry if you think the colors stand out a little bit more than you’ve hoped for. This is
the time to wash all that away and blend everything together. Whatever combination of colors
you have used, it is always a good idea to add another color of spray paint to the mix, one that is
closely related to the base color that you put on in the beginning. Here is a nifty chart to figure
out which spray paint is the best for each base color.

Light green Olive Drab 

Dark green Olive Drab
Light
Brown 
brown
Dark
Brown 
brown
Tan
Light brown or tan
(natural)
(depending on the other colors added) very light
Grey green, light brown, or Olive Drab) 
Olive Drab Green 

     Remember that adding the colors of spray paint to the suit is an art. You may notice in the
picture above that I sprayed some of the tan part of the suit with the Olive Drab spray pant. This
makes it so that the tan color doesn't stand out as much. This is what you are trying to do. And as
always, this chart is not the limit so how many, or what color you want to add or blend in to the
suit. You may even want to take this opportunity of blending to add another color all together.
This is very limited however. For instance, if you have a suit with light green, dark green, and
olive drab, you may to consider adding a darkish gray to the mix. Be very sparing with this tactic
however. Also, the spray paint will not make the burlap sticky, but it will somewhat restrict the
individual strands from spreading out more than it should. Therefore, if you do use spray paint
on your suit, take a big-toothed comb and comb the some of the individual strands. This will
separate the stuck togethered strands.
 Step 10: Customizing your suit

    Your almost there, but your suit is not quite finished yet! This is the part where you will
decide what different options you want on your suit, and to try the suit on yourself. This part is
mainly for the BDU suit that you can crawl with (since the Flight suit has Velcro wrist closer and
keep it in place just fine), but if you want to put some of these on the other suit, that's fine by me.
    We will first start with the thumb loops. These are great when you need to crawl, because they
will keep the arms flat and not catch on anything. All right, remember that long piece of double
stitched canvas that I told you to put aside? Well, this is the time to take it out and cut it in half.
After that, seal the ends with a flame. Then the first thing you want to do is put on your jacket
and get on your elbow and knees. Look at where you think the most appropriate place to put the
thumb loops based on the placement of the canvas and the way you are crawling, and mark the
topside of the sleeve with a little dot (on both arms). Take off the jacket and pick an arm to start
with. Lets say the right sleeve for sake of argument. Go to that little dot that you marked off and
place one of the pieces on the dot's area only on the inside of the sleeve and make it
perpendicular to the end of the sleeve. Put the strip down about an inch from the end of the
sleeve and put two pins through the strip and sleeve to keep it in place. Important! You want to
make sure you have the smooth side of the strip facing inward! It is better to have the smooth
side against your tender hand muscles then the rough seams. I unconsciously made this mistake
and had to re-sew the whole strip again. After making sure, you then want pull some dental floss
out to about an arm and a half's worth of length (about 38 inches) and thread it into a needle.
Start sewing from the inside of the sleeve and keep sewing up and down the strip until you've
made about 4 lines or until you run out.

    Now, put the jacket and look at your right sleeve. Take the loose piece of the strip and pull it
into the other inside part of the sleeve (to see where you need to sew it in). Depending on your
arm length and what size of the BDU's you have, your finished product may or may not look like
the one in the picture, but you are generally trying to get it to look like that. Once you know how
far and where the strip should be pulled to, mark the strip and the place where it was held, then
take off the jacket. Pin down the strip and cut off any of the extra and unnecessary strip. You
want to have it about an inch down the sleeve like in the first one. Unpin it and seal the ends with
a flame. Again, thread and sew the strip into place just like before, with about 4 lines, or until
you run out. Then, repeat this process with the left sleeve (or the right one, depending on which
one you started with). Important! You want to make sure you have the smooth side of the strip
facing inward again! You may forget about this part after all that sewing.

    The next special modification you may want to consider doing to your suit is to replace some
of the chest buttons on your jacket (or button fly on your pants) with Velcro strips. You would
want to do this so that the buttons don't jam into the soft parts of your body on a hard ground. I
am going to show you how to replace the second and third button down from the top button on
your jacket with Velcro. Notice I did not say the first button around your neck. It's not necessary
to do that since it won't be in any contact with the ground. You may want to do all of the buttons
except for the top one, or just the ones I show you. Its you decision and how you come in contact
with the ground. First, lay your BDU jacket on the ground facing inside up. Remove the second
button down from the top with a small pair of sharp scissors, or a seam ripper if you have one.
Mark the spot where the button was. This is your center point. Now, depending on what Velcro
you get (preferably black, with 2 inches of width, none of that stick-on stuff if you can), you may
have to do this next part differently. Cut the Velcro in a 2-inch by 2-inch piece, both the hard
Velcro part and the soft Velcro part. You want to start with the hard Velcro part on the place
where you removed the button. Take out some of that left over Shoe Goo or Goop and put a bead
all around the edged of the 2x2 inch piece, and a dab in the middle. Then line up the middle of
the piece with the center point that you marked earlier and press it down. Put something heavy
on it and come back in about an hour or two (you may want to do both of the Velcro pieces since
it takes so long to dry).

     After everything is dry, pull out about two arms length of dental floss (about 50 inches) and
thread and needle. You now want to sew one line around the entire edge of the piece. Only one is
necessary. Important! Be very careful sewing the dental floss into the hard Velcro! If you do it
too fast and are careless, the hook will eat up the wax and chew up the floss! If this happens
you'll need to cut the thread off and do it all over again. Go slowly with the needle, making sure
the floss doesn't come in contact with any of the hooks when your pulling it through. If it starts
catching a hook, pull it out in the other direction a little, then try pulling it through again. After
one line all around the Velcro piece is finished, tie off the knot as you would with a knot on the
netting. Repeat the same procedure with the soft piece of Velcro on the other side of the suit,
using the buttonhole as the center point (be sure to only go through one piece of the fabric and
not through to the canvas). Repeat these processes to any of the buttons you wish to replace with
Velcro.

Step 10: Customizing your suit

    Your almost there, but your suit is not quite finished yet! This is the part where you will
decide what different options you want on your suit, and to try the suit on yourself. This part is
mainly for the BDU suit that you can crawl with (since the Flight suit has Velcro wrist closer and
keep it in place just fine), but if you want to put some of these on the other suit, that's fine by me.

    We will first start with the thumb loops. These are great when you need to crawl, because they
will keep the arms flat and not catch on anything. All right, remember that long piece of double
stitched canvas that I told you to put aside? Well, this is the time to take it out and cut it in half.
After that, seal the ends with a flame. Then the first thing you want to do is put on your jacket
and get on your elbow and knees. Look at where you think the most appropriate place to put the
thumb loops based on the placement of the canvas and the way you are crawling, and mark the
topside of the sleeve with a little dot (on both arms). Take off the jacket and pick an arm to start
with. Lets say the right sleeve for sake of argument. Go to that little dot that you marked off and
place one of the pieces on the dot's area only on the inside of the sleeve and make it
perpendicular to the end of the sleeve. Put the strip down about an inch from the end of the
sleeve and put two pins through the strip and sleeve to keep it in place. Important! You want to
make sure you have the smooth side of the strip facing inward! It is better to have the smooth
side against your tender hand muscles then the rough seams. I unconsciously made this mistake
and had to re-sew the whole strip again. After making sure, you then want pull some dental floss
out to about an arm and a half's worth of length (about 38 inches) and thread it into a needle.
Start sewing from the inside of the sleeve and keep sewing up and down the strip until you've
made about 4 lines or until you run out.

    Now, put the jacket and look at your right sleeve. Take the loose piece of the strip and pull it
into the other inside part of the sleeve (to see where you need to sew it in). Depending on your
arm length and what size of the BDU's you have, your finished product may or may not look like
the one in the picture, but you are generally trying to get it to look like that. Once you know how
far and where the strip should be pulled to, mark the strip and the place where it was held, then
take off the jacket. Pin down the strip and cut off any of the extra and unnecessary strip. You
want to have it about an inch down the sleeve like in the first one. Unpin it and seal the ends with
a flame. Again, thread and sew the strip into place just like before, with about 4 lines, or until
you run out. Then, repeat this process with the left sleeve (or the right one, depending on which
one you started with). Important! You want to make sure you have the smooth side of the strip
facing inward again! You may forget about this part after all that sewing.

    The next special modification you may want to consider doing to your suit is to replace some
of the chest buttons on your jacket (or button fly on your pants) with Velcro strips. You would
want to do this so that the buttons don't jam into the soft parts of your body on a hard ground. I
am going to show you how to replace the second and third button down from the top button on
your jacket with Velcro. Notice I did not say the first button around your neck. It's not necessary
to do that since it won't be in any contact with the ground. You may want to do all of the buttons
except for the top one, or just the ones I show you. Its you decision and how you come in contact
with the ground. First, lay your BDU jacket on the ground facing inside up. Remove the second
button down from the top with a small pair of sharp scissors, or a seam ripper if you have one.
Mark the spot where the button was. This is your center point. Now, depending on what Velcro
you get (preferably black, with 2 inches of width, none of that stick-on stuff if you can), you may
have to do this next part differently. Cut the Velcro in a 2-inch by 2-inch piece, both the hard
Velcro part and the soft Velcro part. You want to start with the hard Velcro part on the place
where you removed the button. Take out some of that left over Shoe Goo or Goop and put a bead
all around the edged of the 2x2 inch piece, and a dab in the middle. Then line up the middle of
the piece with the center point that you marked earlier and press it down. Put something heavy
on it and come back in about an hour or two (you may want to do both of the Velcro pieces since
it takes so long to dry).

     After everything is dry, pull out about two arms length of dental floss (about 50 inches) and
thread and needle. You now want to sew one line around the entire edge of the piece. Only one is
necessary. Important! Be very careful sewing the dental floss into the hard Velcro! If you do it
too fast and are careless, the hook will eat up the wax and chew up the floss! If this happens
you'll need to cut the thread off and do it all over again. Go slowly with the needle, making sure
the floss doesn't come in contact with any of the hooks when your pulling it through. If it starts
catching a hook, pull it out in the other direction a little, then try pulling it through again. After
one line all around the Velcro piece is finished, tie off the knot as you would with a knot on the
netting. Repeat the same procedure with the soft piece of Velcro on the other side of the suit,
using the buttonhole as the center point (be sure to only go through one piece of the fabric and
not through to the canvas). Repeat these processes to any of the buttons you wish to replace with
Velcro.