My tarp was 9' wide. When cut in half, you get two 54" pieces. If you cut those in half, you're left with four 27" pieces, which is the perfect width to cover a firewood pile. So this tarp will yield two 12' long strapless tarps. The tarp also has grommets along the edges, which I started to remove, but realized it was unnecessary. If you wish to remove the grommets, simply pry the grommets apart with a small flat head screwdriver.

I decided to try to save time by sewing pockets on the entire 54" width and cutting it in half later. If I make another one (which I plan to) I'll cut them down to the 27" width before sewing, just to make it easier to handle and get through the sewing machine. You can see in pic 2 how awkward this was. If I had an actual sewing table like Seamster's custom sewing table this would have been much easier.

I made the pockets 12" wide. I started by sewing a zig zag stitch across the short side of the tarp, then measured 12" down and sewed another parallel stitch. Repeat for the entire length of the tarp. My sewing machine did have trouble sewing through the outer edges where the tarp was doubled over, so I cut the grommeted edges off of the short sides.

Note: If you use a heavy upholstery thread, make sure you do some test stitches on some scrap material to ensure that your tension and stitch length and width is correct. I had ended up having to use the highest tension setting on my upper thread and a very loose bobbin thread tension, otherwise it just knotted up in the machine within the first few stitches. Also, when using the high tension on the upper thread, when you thread or re-thread your needle, make sure to get the thread seated down between the tension discs by holding the thread up near the spool and pulling the loose end down near the needle (see pic 4).