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DIY projects that are keeping me busy

Bought a Brittish desert DPM hood for my ghillie hood project. These have a wire running on the inside of the brim, making it easily moldable to different shapes.
Also the ability of removing the hood from your jacket/vest when it's not needed is a nice feature, let's say you want to go with a boonie instead, just unbutton it.

While the hood is nice and roomy it has a weird pointy tip on the top, easily fixed with a minutes worth of sewing. Also there is a wind/rainproof double lining on the inside that needed to be cut off with scissors. My goal was to keep it cool and light while keeping the structure sturdy. Sewed on some polyester chocolate chip mesh on the inside of the hood for ventilation and for sounds to carry better, then cut the material off from the outside (much easier this way). Used a zigzar/jagged cut for the holes to break up the shape, this also gives you nice "leafy" shapes to sew on the outside later on.
Hood turned inside out with mesh sewn on:

Turned it "action side out" and sewed a grid from flat shoelace for attaching real vegetation. The empty space inside the grid I filled with strips of jute, raffia, cut off pieces of inner lining (as previously mentioned), dyed cheesecloth and some bargain bin fabrics. Spray painted with light green krylons.

I made an extra hood with face cover from the lining material (you get two hoods for the price of one basically). Experimenting with something I haven't tried before. Pics up later as the project goes on.

One bad thing I found with this second design is the hood fits pretty snugly, giving away that human outline. Need to figure out something to fix this.

 

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From what I've seen it's the non repetitive patterns that work the best.

For example you have a ghillie that has different color jute as garnish. If the jute is mixed up the suit will look one colored when looking at it from afar.
Lets say you have the same exact suit and arrange the colors into sections instead of blending them together, you now have lighter and darker areas to throw off the person looking at you.

My pet peewees are making the strips of camo too tiny, trying to fill all empty space in the suit, color puking (mixing colors together instead of zoning them) or putting on too much material.

Lately I've tried this technique of using larger and smaller pieces together with this one and it seems to be working. Still could have used WAY bigger pieces of fabric for the hood.

Example of how just a small amount of artificial material works (notice the bigger pieces, no individual strands of jute used). Picture from 2010 Simo Häyhä competition:

 

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Annual event,Häyhä 2013 (sorry folks, it's in PERKELE language).

My plan was to make them disapper
During the Finnish mid summer is so easy to hide, use greens, greens and a touch of....you guessed it, GREENS, and you blend right in.

Haven't used any of my suits in airsoft, yet.

 

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Summer holiday, DIY project time!

Started another pant project a while ago, decided it was time to keep on building it today.

Wanted something in green'ish color so I bought a pair of desert night camo over trousers on ebay dirt cheap. The seller didn't specify the size although he stated what size person the pants fit and to my shock I recieved a pair of mediums. I'm a big dude so this was a problem, but nothing that cant be overcome.

Close up of the paracord grid and vents that would otherwise remain hidden under :

Ripped the side seam apart and before widening the pants by adding a strip of fabric I made the following "tweaks":

-Added ventilation by sewing mesh to the back of the leg area, then cut off the camo fabric.

-Added a paracord grid for attaching vegetation.

-Reinforced knees and added some padding (curious if this works or not).

-Attached misc. fabrics in different shapes and sizes around the grid. I prefer to leave the grid alone from anything artificial (apart from jute), that way there is so much more to be done with vegetation if needed.

-Added crotch ventilation (this was the best idea ever).

-Added elastic loops for attaching vegetation.

-Sewd on some cheap (1,50€ / $2) german surplus suspenders.

If you look at the first pic and compare how wide each side is you will notice how much I widened the pant sleeve. IMO loose fit breaks shape a lot better than slim fit, plus when combined with ventilation holes it allows better air flow.

Side view with the widened part shown in the middle:

The colors are way too bright and stand out. Will be adding some more material, have a bunch of dyed jute hanging outside drying in the sun. Already tried some sand colored spray paint on the knee reinforcements as I was anxious in seeing if the straight line shape can be broken or not.

Mudbath/weathering/more spraypainting coming up as soon as the other side gets finished.

 

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Had a bunch of dry long grass on the concealment vest from previously seeing how long it stays useable and decided not to let it go to waste. For reference that grass you see on the vest has been on for 5 days.

 

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I use hoods, boonies, caps, veils...whatever gets the job done.
It's handy when nothing is permanently attached to your suit so you can mix and match them as you wish.

 

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Some more crap I've been up to.
Concealment vest number three is nearly done:

This was to test if the wacky colors "mellow out" or subdue enough to be effectively used in a suit (I ziptied the larger burlap pieces on and they seem to be holding at least for now). Weird green burlap and lime green strips of torn bed linen work surprisingly well!

Suit hasn't been washed, just dusted off and beat to hell and back with a plastic pipe. Leaving all the dried up dirt on it gave it too light color so most of it had to be removed. Still need to learn how to put different colors into larger areas instead of mixing them up into a one colored mess.

Currently have three experimental pant projects going on plus a full suit that needs to be built for a friend, busy busy busy.

 

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Ok, I have to admit these look too brown and not quite what I was going for.
Guess it's time to untie a few knots and add some brighter green colours.