If you plan to make a ghillie suit, you will need supplies, time, effort, and patience. Depending on the purpose of the suit, as well as the quality and longevity you want from the finished product, you can spend many hours preparing, making, and seasoning it before you can wear it. When making a ghillie suit from scratch, these tasks can take up to 100 hours to complete. However, for a small cost, you can buy most of the materials you need to make your camouflage quicker and easier. A third option is to purchase a pre-made, off-the-shelf ghillie suit.
A ghillie suit starts with a base, usually a battle dress uniform (BDU) consisting of pants and jacket, a flight suit, or just plain old coveralls. If you improvise your own base suit using items such as old coveralls, be sure to wash them first with a detergent that doesn’t have added scented chemicals. When you need your ghillie suit to provide coverage only from the waist up, leaving your legs free to move, you can plan to make a net poncho covered with ghillie material instead of a full suit.
Dedicated individuals who are determined to make their own ghillie suits from scratch need to purchase burlap to prepare for the most tedious and time-consuming part of the operation. This involves dyeing the burlap in various shades ranging from medium green to brown, cutting it into strips, and sewing the strips onto the base suit with the ends of the top strips overlapping the attachment points of the bottom strips by about a half inch. to provide coverage. Alternatively, you can first sew and glue the netting to the base suit, then attach the dyed burlap strips or jute twine to the netting. Be careful not to end up with similarly colored strip blocks, as this will defeat the point of using the ghillie suit to blend into the background.
Dye colors should be chosen so that they blend in with the area where you will be wearing your ghillie suit. You can also add to the authentic look by taking the suit to the area and rolling it up in the local vegetation, or by adding some greenery to the netting or suit straps. Keep in mind, however, when making your ghillie suit, that burlap is hot and heavy. If you add too much to it, you may find it difficult to move as fast as you need to, as well as uncomfortable, especially in hot weather.
You can skip the dyeing and cutting, but still get involved in making your ghillie suit by purchasing a ghillie kit that includes all the materials you need, as well as assembly instructions. These can be ordered in your desired custom color scheme or purchased from available patterns, and can take anywhere from five to 10 hours to complete by hand. If time is a factor, a pre-made ghillie suit costs more than a kit, but saves time and effort.
When making your own ghillie suit, you need to remember that hessian and burlap is highly flammable and you need to take proper precautions in dealing with it. This need should not apply to ghillie suits and gear available for purchase, because they are usually treated with flame retardants before purchase or are made of flame-resistant materials. They’re also often made from materials that are lighter and cooler than burlap, making them more comfortable, though less traditional, than the kind of ghillie suit you’d make yourself.