you need a netted straw blanket that is tacked in place every 12".

Look at North American Green Website... I think if you type in your zip code you can find a distributor near you. The netting is biodegradable.

Here is a link that might be useful: biodegradable blankets

Erosion control "snakes" laid across the slope and pegged into the ground.

DIY - Roll wheat or oat straw into snakes inside burlap or row cover, peg down. Or cover the slope with "flakes" from bales of straw and peg them down.

On a small scale, you can stuff straw into cheap pantyhose and peg it below the plants to hold water.

Hummm...? Depends on how steep the slope is.

Can you get stuff to stay long enough to lay out compost type layers, then add free burlap sacks and peg those with stakes made from tree and shrub trimmings ? This would be a perfect way to use the Interbay Mulch system. Click on the FAQ section at the top of this forum for more details.

Everything would be free, improve the soil giving your ground covers better growing conditions, and in the end, it would all disappear into the earth ( you wouldn't have to go back down unless you wanted too). Coffee roasters need to get rid of the burlap sacks since they can only be used once due to food safety, so they are alawys a good source. Just turn the printed side down and it will all look okay.

I've worked on some scary slopes... I just have to remember to never stand up and admire the view. It gives me that "whoaaa" feeling and takes a good bit to get back in the groove.
Be careful and don't fall off the hill. ;)

What, if anything, might need to be used depends on the degree of slope and the amount of rai that falls. A gentle 1 in 10 (1 inch in 10 feet) slope most likely would need nothing while a steeper 1 in 4 would. There are woven straw mattes or burlap fabric that could be used and might help.
Several years ago the county road people installed buttons on the culvert under my drive and since that needd to be dug out some and then refilled they seeded and then put those straw mattes over this new soil to "prevent" erosion. Shortly thereafter we had a real gulley washer and the bank slid inot the ditch, eroded from under the mattes which were still there holding nothing.

When the matts are not installed properly the soil will move underneath them. Though it sounds like in Kimmsr's situation they had a toe scour problem, needed some articulated block or rip rap at the bottom.

I have had very good success using cypress mulch on my slope. It doesn't tend to wash downslope like pine bark or pine straw.

At that point the soil slope is a 4 foot drop in 2 feet, steep, and those mattes will not hold in that situation in a fairly heavy rain much less the gulley washer (6 inches of water in an hour) we had. Even some places that had really good grass growth eroded.

I've seen matts hold where rip rap did not. The key to the matts working is proper installation. I drive past lots of lots of the stuff that is installed incorrectly.... its too bad because they do work really well, but they've gotten a bad reputation from continued bad installation practices.