We did that the year before last with our Butternut Squash, it worked great, I just cut the feet off the panty hose, placed the squash in it, and tied it to the fence; when it was ripe enough we just cut the squash off the vine and 'unwrapped ' it.
I've seen melons and pumpkins grown that way at the Botanical Gardens. they did make slings , I believe it was plastic mesh, like you'd buy a bag of 'cuties' in..they had them trained up and over an arbor so the melonsgrew up the sides & hung down from the ceiling. It was kind of weird, and beautiful at the same time