How The Amazonas Hammocks are made
Pick, spin, bundle, dye, dry, wind, weave, sew, decorate, pack, monitor.
Over a dozen work stages are involved in making each high-quality AMAZONAS
Hammock in the traditional way from picked cotton. Making hammocks by
hand has a long tradition in Brazil, particularly in the North East
of the country, where it is still practised and carefully nurtured to
this day:
1. The cotton is first picked and spun by hand.
2. Around 3,500-4,500 threads of the correct length need
to be counted off into bundles for each hammock .
3. These bundles are coloured with high-quality dyes, which
are especially selected for their compatibility with health
and are obtained directly from European manufacturers.
4. The dyed threads are dried in the fresh air. Then comes the trickiest part:
The threads must be wound onto the roll on the web stand in the correct pattern
without becoming tangled.
5. The web stand foreman, a highly-respected position, sets
up the web stand accordingly. Up to 4,500 longitudinal threads
must be knotted exactly. He requires a whole day for this.
6. At the same time, the spindles for the cross threads are wound on
with the correctly dyed threads.
7. A good weaver produces around 10 hammocks a day on one web stand.
8. The head and feet ends of each hammock are plaited,
twisted and sewn by further specialists. Some models
still need
to be decorated with the Macramé veranda
(fringe edging).
9. Whilst this is going on, the suspension cords are
plaited from the same cotton threads using the traditional
crochet
apparatus.
10. The cords are cut to the right length, carefully
bound by hand to the almost completed hammock and
the suspension
ties are given extra reinforcement.
11. The seamstresses have finished sewing the sack
in the meantime.
12. The hammock is checked for the last time to ensure
that it is clean and in perfect condition, it is
then folded
together and can begin its journey into the wide
world.
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