How Are Hammocks 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.

The majority of the work stages are so complicated that they require an adult with several years training an experience. Nevertheless there are on-the-spot inspections to ensure that no child labour is used.