Hammock progress

One of the most useful things I learned from a college sculpture class was to make use of as many free materials as you can.  There were many things I could have learned from that class, but most of them had nothing to do with sculpture.  My mind was closed to such things then; I was quite confident in my own abilities, but had no sense of self.  Even I recognized this; I once said there was a two year turnaround between the things I did and my thinking how stupid they were.  In the moment I always thought I was doing the right thing, but two years later I would recognize what an idiot I was.  I'm not sure if this has changed any, but I do try to be more mindful of myself.  I can't begrudge the route I've taken to get where I am, but I do sometimes wish I had taken better advantage of those bygone days.

One of the materials that I have an abundance of from working at the grocery store are the plastic straps that come wrapped around some of the boxes.  The ones I've been collecting are about a centimeter wide and 3 to 4 feet long (to switch from metric to imperial mid-sentence).  They come in a variety of colors but most common are pink, green, and white.  I've been collecting them for a while and many of my coworkers save them for me.  The first thing I built was a reusable shopping bag by following instructions I found on youtube for basket weaving, but since then I've branched out to beer cozies, purse type things, a lizard man (still in progress), and I'm currently working on a hammock.

I mentioned a few projects I'm working on with the straps, but I've decided to focus my efforts on one project at a time because the materials and half finished sculptures/projects I've been accumulating are starting to pile up.  Every time I mention a new one to my wife she asks me when I'm going to finish the ones I already have going, especially since some of the stuff is blocking access to her closet.  

As of yesterday the hammock is over six feet long, about 6' 4".  The straps running the length of the hammock alternate pink and green, and the ones spanning the width are white.  Because the straps are not as long as the hammock, I've tried to stagger the straps to give the hammock strength.  They all have some overlap, but if all of them end in the same place they might get pulled apart when there's weight on the hammock.  I'm not sure this won't happen anyway, but I have faith in the strength of the weave.  

I'm planning on making it 7 feet long, which to me seems like a reasonable length for the average person.  I'm going to have to attach a rope to it with enough strength to hold a human both in the rope itself and in how the rope is attached.  I have an idea that uses another scavenged material from my work: small plastic spools from produce bags.  The thin plastic bags that people use for bananas and apples and other loose fruit come on little green spools or cylinders that I've been collecting for a long time now.  They're a little smaller than toilet paper rolls and made of plastic.  If I line them up and weave them into the ends I can run a rope through them to string the hammock up.  I'm going to have to learn how to splice and cut rope, but I'm hoping to be completely finished with it in the next week or two.