Today I opened a fresh roll of hardware cloth. It is springy and the edges sharp. Rather than standing on it and rolling it out on the floor, I slung it over the rod in my studio. Then I ran the hardware cloth behind the rod and fed it through.
I was able to unroll and straighten at the same time. The piece of blue tape was for marking my place to cut. To prevent the hardware cloth from springing about while I was cutting it, I inserted a couple of cup hooks in the wall.
Sometimes something simple and unexpected happens to make work a bit easier.