How to Weave a Mayan Hammock

At last, the English version has arrived!

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 3^rd and 4^th 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.

Until next time! 😊