easy shelter design

There's nothing quite as easy as making a tarp for a shelter ….. it's a great second project.

I made one of Ray Jardine's tarp and net tent kits a while back and found it fairly simple to make. I had only sewn a couple of stuff sacks and one of his quilts before, but I made it through the project with limited amounts of frustrations and cursing. All of which were material based. (Sil can be somewhat frustrating to sew with at first until you get the hang of it.) I've found all of Ray's kits to be excellent in quality of materials as well as instructions. And it's pretty hard to beat the prices!

Part of BackpackingLight.com's premium is a series of projects for MYOGers wishing to turn 5 yards of fabric into a stuff sack, tarp and backpack.

I followed the author Jay Hamm's quality directions and successfully sewed a nicely featured tarp which turned out to be both durable and functional.

Other possibilities are free tarp plans for Henry Shires Tarptent (tarptent.com) and Ron Moak's Nightwing Tarp (sixmoondesigns.com).

About the easiest shelter I know to make is a simple rectangular tarp. If you know how to sew a flat-felled seam then you should be good. I made one as my first shelter. All it takes is a flat felled seam down the center, some hemming around the edges, and some bar tacking of webbing tie-outs on the ridge and corners.

Apart from that I highly recommend Ray Jardine's tarp kit. Not only does it provide you with all of the materials you need at a reasonable price, but his instructions are absolutely unbeatable.