Por fin, este
va a ser el último post en la serie sobre cómo hacer las hamacas mayas. Una vez
que tengas el burro para aguantar los hilos del brazo, estás list@ para hacer los
propios brazos, ¡el último paso!
Para hacer
los brazos necesitas conseguir los materiales siguientes:
-El burro
de brazo de hamaca - explicado en el poste anterior: https://andrewkfiberarts.blogspot.com/2018/12/como-hacer-el-burro-para-hacer-los.html
-Hilo de
nylon #18 (torcido, no trenzado), aproximadamente 960 metros.
hilo de nylon #18
El primer
paso en construir los brazos de la hamaca es el que quizá asuste más: quitar la
red de la hamaca del telar. No te preocupes tanto, es trabajo fácil 😊 Lo único que hace falta hacer para
asegurarte de que nada se arruina es sujetar bien los dos extremos de la red
antes de quitarla del telar. Mientras vamos urdiendo, dejamos nudos alrededor
de los dos postes que tienen espacio por dentro. Simplemente pasa una cuerda
por todos estos nudos desde el fondo hasta la cumbre y cierra la cuerda con
cualquier nudo fuerte, teniendo cuidado para no olvidar ningún nudo, porque es
difícil de reintroducirlo al proceso de enhebrar luego. Cuando los dos lados
estén sujetados, se puede desmontar el telar para quitarla del telar.
Pasa una cuerda por los nudos en los extremos de la red.
Ahora les
doy una lista de los pasos para explicar el proceso de enhebrar los nudos y a
continuación un video que muestra lo mismo. Mantén en mente que hace falta
mantener el hilo de nylon ni apretado ni suelto durante este proceso.
-Monta el
burro de brazo de hamaca por sujetarlo en cualquier manera que puedas a una
superficie fijo y plano. Asegúrate de también montar la pieza de madera que
tiene forma de monte que alarga unos hilos y otros no.
-Toma un
palo (o en mi caso un palo cuadrado) y pásalo por todos los nudos de un extremo
de la red. Sujeta este palo justo enfrente de la pieza con forma de monte,
asegurándote de que todo esté centrado. A la vez, usa otro palo corto para colgar
el otro extremo de la red a una posición más alta, por ejemplo, a un árbol o
algo parecido. No quites las cuerdas que mantienen los extremos sujetados
todavía.
-Toma el
hilo de nylon y haz un nudo aproximadamente el mismo tamaño como los nudos en
los extremos de la hamaca. Usando la cuerda que mantiene los nudos sujetados, agrupa
toda la red para poder pasar este hilo de nylon por todos los nudos de un lado
al otro (yo lo hice de la derecha a la izquierda, pero no importa).
-Una vez
que el hilo de nylon está en posición, toma su nudo y engánchalo en el poste en
el extremo del burro. Desde aquí hasta el final, el patrón va a seguir igual:
contar dos nudos, y tira la cuerda hacia arriba justo al lado de estos dos
nudos. Va a verse como una “U” boca abajo saliendo entre los nudos de la
hamaca. Este nuevo nudo es el que vas a enganchar alrededor del poste otra vez.
Mueve los dos nudos ya enhebrados a la izquierda y cuenta dos nudos nuevos para
seguir con el mismo patrón. Ten cuidado para asegurar que todos los nudos de la
red tengan la misma tensión después de enhebrarlos.
-Después de
enhebrar todos los nudos de este lado de la hamaca, termínalo todo por hacer un
nudo final en el cabo del hilo de nylon #18 y engánchalo en el poste como
hicimos con el primer nudo.
henebrado terminado
-Antes de continuar,
toma unas cuerdas y amarra el brazo completo en tres lugares: dos de ellos
unos 20 cm del poste en cada lado, y el tercer justo en el medio de los otros
dos (después de quitar el brazo del poste para que quepa este nudo).
-El último
paso para terminar el brazo es envolver el nuevo nudo grande con el mismo hilo
de nylon para proteger las cuerdas finas de la abrasión de las sogas. Para
hacer eso prepara 8 trozos de hilo de nylon, cerca de 2 metros cada uno. Aquí
se puede utilizar un color diferente del que se usó en los brazos para darle
más color a la hamaca.
.
-Ayuda usar
una llama o cuchillo caliente para derretir los cabos de estos trozos de hilo
para que no se deshagan mientras trabajas.
-Reemplaza
el nudo central de los tres que acabas de hacer con un nudo constrictor (o nudo
parecido) con un hilo más fino que se puede incorporar sin ocupar mucho
espacio.
Un hilado fino para sujetar el medio del nudo del brazo
-Deja que
la hamaca se quede en el suelo mientras usas las dos piernas para abrir el
brazo y mantener la zona de trabajo bajo tensión con los pies y las rodillas. Aproximadamente
15 cm de este nuevo nudo central, haz un nudo constrictor con los 8 trozos de
hilo.
-Manteniendo todo bastante apretado (pero no demasiado), empieza a
envolver el nudo con los 8 hilos a la vez, asegurándote de mantenerlos todos en
un solo plano. Después de pasar el nudo central continúa hasta alcanzar la
misma distancia del medio como el otro extremo y haz otro nudo constrictor para
sujetar las cuerdas.
-Ahora
tienes una sección del brazo envuelto con estos nuevos hilos y solo hace falta
doblarla y atar los cabos de los 2 grupos de hilos. Sin embargo, este no es un
proceso directo y requiere que juegues un poco para mantener todo llano y
organizado (se ve en el video). Si alguien conoce una manera mejor de doblar
esta sección, ¡me encantaría escucharlo! Después de atar los dos grupos, usa el
grupo que queda más largo para envolver los dos lados del brazo justo bajo el
nudo grande en uno para reforzarlo.
Espero que
les haya gustado el tutorial y que les salgan muchas hamacas bellas 😊.
Favor de
dejar comentarios sobre cualquier parte del tutorial con sugerencias, críticas
y otras ideas para mejorarlo.
This tutorial series has been taking a while longer than anticipated, but hey, life can be a lot more difficult than you anticipate.
The next step in making a Mayan hammock is to create the clew. The clew is the name for the supporting strings that attach to the ends of the hammock. In traditional western hammocks, the clew is usually an array of ropes that attach a wooden spreader bar to a metal ring or something similar. However for a Mayan hammock, the clew is a bundle of hundreds of thin strings, just like the bed of the hammock. A special jig can be used to help facilitate the creation of the clew, although I remember reading one source that stated some hammock makers manage to use their ankle instead of a wooden frame and peg, so if you're feeling confident that might be an option.
To make this clew jig I used leftover pieces from making the hammock loom - you can use whatever you have on hand, but boards about 1 by 2 inches would be good.
The tools you will need are:
A hand saw
Chisel
Mallet
Sandpaper
Some sort of bench or work surface to clamp your pieces down to
This jig is really easy to make and might not require much instruction beyond the materials needed and pictures, but basically you're just making a triangular wooden frame with a wooden peg 1 meter away from the base. For the jig in the picture, I added an extension to it to make clews for larger hammocks although the 1 meter distance is what most will require.
The first step is to create a wooden piece that has the shape of a hill basically. While you are threading the clew, the strings will lay on top of this shaped piece of wood, and will have their lengths altered by it. The strings in the middle of the clew will be longer because they are elevated more by the hill guide. Using this hill guide isn't technically necessary, but the end result will be more comfortable if you do. Having tighter strings on the edge of the clew puts more weight on the knotted bands on the edge of the hammock, taking weight off of the center and allowing it to open up under less tension.
To make this guide piece, just cut out 2 small rectangles from the edges to create two little feet that the board will be tied down with. After that use a hand saw (or table saw/bandsaw) to cut the 2 sloping edges of the guide. This picture shows 2 sets of lines: the red lines show where I made my cuts and realized that they were a little too shallow. The green lines show a better location for the cuts - none of this is too scientific so don't worry if it's slightly off.
The last step of creating this piece for me was to glue 2 small blocks to extend the width of the feet to give the whole piece more stability when upright.
Finished guide piece
The next step is to create the triangular frame itself. There is some room for play here, so just do what works best for the materials you're working with. The base of the clew jig should be about 4 feet wide at the bottom, and provide a point 1 meter from the center of that base to attach a wooden peg.
The small board at the top will just be used to support a horizontal crossbar from below while glue is drying
Glue/hammer a small horizontal board down that will hold the peg in the middle of the frame.
Make sure to clamp/otherwise weigh down pieces while the glue is drying
Now the last step to building the frame is to attach the base board with glue/nails. This is really straightforward, and afterwards all that's left is to drill a hole to accept the post at the top of the jig. It's super important to make sure that your post is in the exact center of the baseboard roughly 1 meter away, so make all of your measurements carefully.
Finally, just two small pieces remain: one is a short length of broom handle or something similar to pass through the loose loops on the end of the hammock - here I have a square dowel, which should be about the width of the base of the frame and the hill shaped string guide we made earlier.
The other is the small peg. I turned this one on my lathe, but any short length of round wood will do. To help hold the end of the clew strings in place it helps to have a slightly concave surface to the peg.
And that's all there is to do to get a clew jig ready for use! Hopefully before too long I'll have the tutorial for making the clew itself ready, so until then!
Bueno, ha
pasado un buen rato aquí – la vida es difícil a veces y te deja sin una
computadora para terminar las cosas que quieres – ¡al mal tiempo, buena cara!
¡Entonces,
a la próxima parte del tutorial!
En esta parte
voy a hablar sobre el proceso de crear el burro que vas a usar para hacer los
brazos de la hamaca y luego en otro post, escribir sobre la creación de los
brazos.
Para
empezar, la madera que ves aquí conseguí de los restos de hacer el propio telar
de hamacas. Las herramientas que vas a necesitar son las que se ven aquí: un
mazo, formón, una sierra de mano, papel de lijo y alguna plantilla para sostener todo mientras
estés trabajando.
Este burro es bastante fácil de construir y en su forma más
simple solo es un triángulo de tablas con un pequeño poste en la punta.
El primer
paso consiste en cortar una tabla que va a ayudar a sostener los
hilos de los brazos. Como ves en esta foto, la tabla tiene
una forma de monte que altera la longitud de las cuerdas un poquito – formar
los brazos con esta parte produce una hamaca más cómoda. Tener esta parte
hace que las cuerdas del interior de la hamaca sean un poquito más largas que
las que se juntan con los bastidores en los bordes. Tener cuerdas más cortas
para los bastidores hace que aguanten más peso que la red interior, dejándola
abrirse bajo menos tensión.
Entonces ese será el primer trabajo. Asegúrate
de que esta parte sea bastante ancha para abarcar la anchura de la hamaca, que para
mí fue 1,1 – 1,2 metros. No requiere mucha explicación, simplemente usa la
sierra para cortar dos patas en los dos extremos y luego unas cortes para dar la
forma de monte que se ve. Esta tabla tiene una altura de 6 cm, pero pienso que si fuera 8-12 daría una red más suelta en el interior. Las líneas verdes muestran una forma más apropiada para cortar, para que haya una "meseta" menos ancha.
Una vez que
esta parte esté cortada y alisada con el formón y papel de lijo usa cola de carpintero
para pegar unos bloques pequeños de madera en las patas que hicimos antes – hacer
esto deja una pata más sólida para mantener la tabla vertical y estable.
El próximo
paso consiste en construir la parte triangular. El burro que hice para este
tutorial va a tener espacios para poner el pequeño poste a una distancia de 1
metro del extremo de la hamaca y otro agujero para meterlo 1,5 metros de lejos.
Entonces aquí se ven 4 piezas de madera: la más pequeña solo sirve para marcar y sostener por debajo otra pieza (que ya no se ve) que abarca el espacio entre los
dos listones al lado. Se nota también que al fondo del triángulo la madera está
cortada con un ángulo bajo, pero eso es innecesario – se pueden dejar rectos.
Después de
hacer todas las medidas, pega un trozo de madera 1 metro de distancia
(dependiendo de tu preferencia) del fondo del burro con cola de carpintero,
claves, o tu manera preferida. Si usas cola de carpintero, sujételo con un peso
mientras se está secando. En el centro de esta tabla haz un agujero con un diámetro cerca de 3
cm para aceptar el poste que aguanta el extremo del brazo. Yo añadí una
extensión luego para crear brazos de 1,5 metros (que realmente no se usará a
menos que urdas una hamaca bien grandota como de 3 metros de largo).
La parte superior de la tablilla vertical marca 1 metro de distancia del fondo.
Extensión hasta 1,5 m
Para fijar
la pieza de madera al fondo del burro medí la distancia entre las dos tablas
diagonales y marqué el centro en el suelo abajo. Luego encontré el centro de la
tabla inferior y lo alineé con la marca en el suelo para asegurar que estuviera
más o menos central. Usé cola de carpintero para sujetarlo.
Otra parte que se va a necesitar es alguna barra para pasar por los nudos sueltos en los extremos de la hamaca – aquí usé una barra cuadrada, pero un palo de escoba o algo parecido es perfecto.
La última
parte que hace falta conseguir es el previamente mencionado poste pequeño – el que
ves aquí hice con mi torno, pero cualquier ramita recta y lisa que quepa
fijamente en los agujeros del burro servirá. Este poste necesita un pequeño valle en el centro de su longitud vertical que ayuda a agrupar las cuerdas del brazo y prevenir que se escurran durante la creación del brazo.
Y si lo
crees o no, ese es todo el trabajo para este pequeño proyecto! Espero tener más
del tutorial completo en las semanas que vienen. Hasta entonces!
In this post I'll be covering
all of the materials and techniques needed to weave the main body of the
hammock. The weaving techniques that I am going to be sharing here aren't the
only ones around - there are tons of other weaving patterns that I haven't explored
yet, however, it is the most commonly seen. Taking a look at a Mayan hammock,
It may seem daunting at first, but within an hour you'll have the weaving
technique down pat.
Nothing can truly be
appreciated without understanding its history first. These hammocks have been
used by the Maya in the regions in and around the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico
for several hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. The hammocks were traditionally made from cord
hand-twisted from the fibers of the leaves of the agave plant - a very laborious
task. Nowadays the hammocks that are sold to the general consumer market are
predominantly made from nylon, but can also be woven from any strong plant
fiber such as hemp, linen, or cotton. The Maya used these hammocks for their
everyday sleeping needs which provided many benefits over sleeping on a solid
surface. The hammocks kept the sleepers cool in the tropical jungles of Yucatán
by allowing the breeze to flow over and under the body. It
also kept them off of the jungle forest floor, which has a plethora of biting
and stinging insects and other critters that you don't want crawling into bed
with you in the middle of the night. The Maya were also clever enough to coat
their hammock support ropes with poisonous tree sap to repel insects that tried
to climb along the ropes towards the sleeping occupants. And whether it be for
sleeping, relaxing, sex (the hamaca sutra for
those interested), rocking your baby to sleep, storing pillows and blankets or
whatever the heck else you can manage to fit in it, they are one of the most
comfortable means of doing so that I've come across. Something else to keep in
mind is that mattresses are expensive - at least $800 if you want a decent
queen size. Depending on what type of yarn you use and how you obtain it, a
Mayan hammock big enough for two people to fit in can cost as little as
$40-$60, with the added cost of the production time. But trust me, this is one
of the most rewarding projects you can undertake.
As mentioned before, nowadays
there are basically two easy options for cordage: nylon, and cotton. Nylon was
too difficult for me to obtain at a reasonable price, but if you have it
available, #18 twisted nylon cordage is the way to go, although the exact
yardage I'm uncertain of - somewhere around 6,000-9,000 yards maybe? The
benefit of nylon over cotton is that it’s much more resistant to mold and
general weathering, but isn’t quite as soft. Either way you’ll end up with a
ridiculously comfortable hammock. But a really clever way to get your yarn is
to upcycle it from thickly-knit cotton thrift store sweaters. Not every sweater
will do, but a trip to a well-known secondhand store (not all are as honest and
kind as they’d like you to hope, keep that in mind) gave me on average 5+
sweaters, and although I have yet to unravel and use all of just one sweater
due to wanting more colors, I think 5-10 big sweaters should be enough to weave
most sized hammocks. And if afterwards you have leftover sweaters, well, then I
guess you’ll just have to put up with having more sweaters to cozy up with –
better safe than sorry 😊
Here is a good resource for helping you learn how to unravel
sweaters to reuse their yarn: http://www.craftstylish.com/item/9839/how-to-recycle-yarn-from-a-thrift-store-sweater/page/all. And
please, be VERY picky with the sweaters you deem worthy. Old half-tattered
sweaters could make for weak yarn, and you don’t want any weak spots in your
hammock. This happened to me in my second hammock, and trust me, you don’t want
to see the day when your hammock splits open and starts unraveling. Although
don’t throw in the towel right away if it does, you can always re-mount it on
your loom to re-weave the damaged spots. In the accompanying video tutorial,
you can see how thick of yarn you want to end up with more or less. Even if your sweater isn’t
thick enough on its own you can take 1 strand from multiple dissected panels at
a time to double/triple/etc. the number of yarns that constitute your 1 working
yarn. So, if you see a color that you like in the thrift store, and it’s a tad
on the thin side, go for it and double/triple it up. Regardless of what kind of
yarn/cord you end up using to weave your hammock, you’ll still need a small amount
of the previously mentioned #18 twisted nylon string to make the clew (end
strings) of the hammock, approximately 640m-960m (700-1050 yds).
Let’s get weaving!
For this tutorial I’m going to be weaving a 2.5m hammock, which
turns out to hold two people comfortably side by side. But really, a 2 meter
hammock will suffice, so don’t overburden yourself on your first go. This
hammock’s outer support bands have 18 partitions, for a total of 36 picks per
row, with 230 rows for a total of 8,280 individual stitches, whereas a 2 meter
hammock with the same tension and number of rows would total about 6,400
stitches.
Weaving a Mayan hammock begins with tying the two bastidores (“stretchers”) – the two
bands of tied knots that form strong edges on the hammock. These bands help
bear a slightly larger percentage of the occupant’s weight, so the interior net can open
under less tension, giving a looser, more comfortable hammock.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Derek Hansen has already
provided great diagrams and a video for how to get started tying these bands,
so go ahead and check that out on his website: https://theultimatehang.com/2013/07/26/weaving-a-mayan-hammock/.
One of my personal preferences with using thick cotton yarn though, is to leave
5 inches (13 cm) of space between knots instead of the 3-4 mentioned on Derek’s
page as I like how loose the weave is at that tension. 3-4 inches may be more
appropriate if you are using #18 nylon however. Don’t be afraid to set up
different short test bands before going all in if you’re not sure.
Also, before being able to start doing any of the work on the
hammock, you’ll need to get yourself a netting needle, like this one which I whittled
out of a paint stir stick:
Paint stir stick needle
These can be found online, but are quite easy to make out of a
variety of materials, so get creative with it, and here’s a diagram of how I
made this needle from the paint stick:
Small circles with Xs inside represent holes to drill. Cut along the dotted lines after drilling the marked holes, then use a knife to whittle away the area up top leaving a small needle behind in the space. The small bottom rectangle can be easily snapped off after being drilled and cut.
And don’t forget to sand it really well, any little rough spots that
might even be too small to see will catch on all of your yarns and get annoying pretty quickly.
Now that you have your needle full of yarn in hand, start by
winding on 10-12 rounds of warp. In weaving terms, the warp are the stationary
strings that the weft (loaded on the shuttle/needle) is woven around. It’s my personal preference to make my bands 12 rows wide to compensate for cotton being weaker than nylon, but 8-10 would probably be just as sturdy. But again, better safe than sorry.
Here’s a diagram showing which direction to wind the warp on and
which direction to weave (this is for the actual weaving, you will be on the left of the loom as shown in Derek's video for tying the bands):
Wind the warp clockwise starting at the far end, and weave counterclockwise starting at the near end. Over time I found that putting myself on the left side of the loom instead of the right gave me less wrist pain, so give that a shot once you're comfortable with what you're doing.
Now there are two ways to go about tying these two bands. I prefer
to tie both of them before the actual weaving to ensure that they are both
spaced the same and under the same tension, and I simply leave the second band
pushed all the way up on the loom until I need it later. However, you can just
tie the first one, weave the main body of the hammock, then tie the other band right
off of the weaving. I used this technique for my first hammock, but opted for
tying them at the same time for the next two.
Once your band(s) is/are tied, it’s time to finally get weaving
for real! The weaving technique goes a lot faster than the knotting, don’t
worry 😊. The following video is broken down into the
different techniques needed to do all of the weaving, along with some written
directions:
-Make sure to load up at least 10 rounds of warp on to your loom
at once, but adjust the tension of them so the bottom warp string you’re
currently incorporating hangs loose below the level of the weaving zone. It may
seem counter-intuitive at first, but you want extra slack in your yarns so that
when they become the 3rd and 4th yarns for the coming
rows, they have enough extra length to tighten up into the zigzag shape instead
of being tight and inflexible.
-Every row of the band is composed of 1 warp yarn and 1 weft yarn,
and it’s not necessary, but I suggest you grab both of those yarns and treat
them as 1 for when you begin the weaving, so the net has a stronger anchor –
you’ll see in the video.
-Starting off with 3 “yarns” (doubled up) from the band and 1 warp
yarn, giving you the 4 yarns that the pattern requires you to have. The pattern
goes as such: under 2, over 2, back under 2. Each section of the band holds 2 stitches/picks
each, so going back into the same box again: under 2, over 2, back down under 2,
HOWEVER. For the second stitch in each box, when you go back down under 2,
advance the second-from-the-top string ahead to the next section – the video
shows this clearly.
-After finishing the first row, walk around to the other side of
the loom and lower the next warp string – this row you’ll be working with 2 “yarns”
from the band and 2 yarns from the warp. If you look at the first row, you’ll see
the weft lying in a series of peaks and valleys. ALWAYS grab the warp yarns
from in between the peaks (in the valleys) to incorporate into your weave. The
following row will use just 1 of the band yarns and 3 warp yarns and from there
on out you’ll just keep pulling 1 warp string down every row and keep weaving
for around 200 rows to end up with a hammock that opens sufficiently wide. Keep
in mind that while there is no weight in the hammock (as is the case with the
hammock on the loom), it will be able to open wider than it can with you
actually in it, so even if it looks a little wide just remember that it will
tighten up a good bit once you’re in. The whole weaving process will typically
take between 15 and 45 days (or nearly 2 1/2 months like the hammock for this
tutorial) depending on how many hours a day you can put in. Which sounds excruciating
right now, I know, but it’s a really meditative activity that was very
stress-relieving for me (and trust me, during grad school you need a lot of that).
And of course, after all is said and done you’ll be able to toss yourself into one
of the coziest hammocks you’ve ever been in that you made with your own hands 😊 it’s worth the struggle.
-After you have woven the hammock to a sufficient width, it’s time
to attach the other band to the final edge of the hammock. Cut your final warp
string with an excess of a few feet and lower the band into your working zone.
Now, instead of incorporating warp threads, you’re going to incorporate “threads”
(doubled) from the band. Start off with the top three threads from below and
one thread from the band, continuing with your normal weave pattern, trying to
put 2 stitches into each of these boxes again. At the end of the band, you
might find yourself putting only 1 stitch in a few of the boxes like I did, but
don’t worry, it hasn’t made any difference for me if it’s just a little bit off
😊.
-Continue in this fashion for 2 more rows, giving you a total of 3
rows of weft interwoven into the second band, just as you have with the first
band.
-With the second band attached, everything is finally done with
the weaving of the hammock bed, congrats! Now all that’s left to make are the
clews, which will be coming in the following posts.
