Chris,
I might be able to help you here; back in my first posting to Germany in 1971, camouflage nets still consisted of the older type ie with Hessian strips and the new ones with plastic patches applied with small plastic clips. The latter were coloured green on one side and a medium brown on the other. Some time ago I made a small vignette of yours truly actually working on one of these: Preparing for Exercise - Cold War 1972.
In our store my Staff Branch still had the older type of Hessian strips-type net too and I also had a hand in making these nets up. The Hessian came in rolls in two different colours, green and brown; they were around 2½" wide. If there were other colours we didn’t have any, although it’s conceivable that “plain” Hessian was torn into strips and used.
There appeared to be no rhyme or reason in how the nets were made; if there were manuals stating how, they were simply unavailable and junior rank soldiers like me were simply detailed off and left to our own devices. The idea was, after all, to enable a net to break up a vehicle’s outline not necessarily to make it blend in - although the latter aspect is a sort of by-product of the former perhaps. Strips were torn off and simply threaded through the netting. Often one end was tied to the net to stop it disappearing, but the threading through, say every other mesh, would normally mean it stayed in place-ish(!) There was no regular pattern, as that would have defeated the aim; sometimes a sort of spiral effect was achieved but I think that was simply down to the boredom factor of young soldiers as their enthusiasm waned during what was quite an onerous task. WW2 pics will often show this effect.
Of course, once applied to a vehicle for effect - as opposed to just being stowed - any patterns are really rather indistinct, depending on how dense the net actually is. Some years ago I tried to replicate the effect on a Conqueror using gauze soaked in white glue and using Tamiya masking tape for the Hessian. I got an effect but it wasn’t brilliant:
There is this well known pic of a Comet with nets applied which you may well be aware of:
To be honest you may not have to worry too much about how the ends of the strip were applied as really the effect is pretty much a jumble once the net is in place; it’s different when the net is deployed when a vehicle is static or over a HQ complex as was my remit when we deployed to the field.
Anyway, more of an historical note than sound advice I’m sure(!)