Ghillie Suit

My husband started this project a couple of months ago.  I was hesitant to post about it, because I was afraid it would end up like the canoe or the aquarium, which are still unfinished.  However, I think that since he was motivated to finish the aquarium now, I am confident enough to post about the Ghillie suit (pronounced "Gee-Lee"- with a Guh sound for the G, not a Juh sound) he and I have been working on.  (If you don't know what a Ghillie suit is, click here to read a little bit about it on Wikipedia.)

James wanted to construct this suit so that he can go deer hunting and be fully camouflaged.   It's been a long process getting this thing together. 

Here is what it looks like right now. We only have the top completed. There are a hat and the pants to work on next.


If you're wondering what this is made from, I'll explain.  First of all, James found this tutorial online which teaches you how to make your own Ghillie suit.    

We bought 2 army jackets and pants on Ebay. My husband also just happens to have a hard hat that he'll be using for the head covering. 

James took apart one jacket to make patches for the elbows and the knees, and I sewed them to the other jacket and pants.

Next, we bought a fish net:


And attached it to the shirt and pants where the tutorial specified, using dental floss and an upholstery needle. 


Next, we bought burlap...about 25 feet of it! 


Now, this was the tedious part.... We cut the burlap into sections, and then pulled out each thread, one at a time. This took several hours over a few weeks and we usually did this while watching TV so we had something to listen to while doing it. It seemed like we would never have it done! 


Next, we dyed the burlap into different colors (green, darker green), and left some in the natural burlap shade.  We ended up with a whole lot of camoflauge colored threads. 



Then came the second tedious part.  We took little bundles of the thread and attached them little by little to the netting on the jacket. This also took hours and hours over a couple of weeks.



And once we had that finished, it looked like this.   I had my son pull out one of the arms so you could see how it looked. 


We have to take apart more burlap and start the whole process over again in order to do the pants and the hat, because we ran out of the burlap threads. It's going to be a long time before it's finished but I think it has been a lot of fun working on it together with my husband.       I'll be sure to post another update when it's further along.

Posted by Bethany at 2/23/2009 9:08 AM
Categories: My Husband's Hobbies

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