HEIRLOOM TECHNOLOGY
INSTANT HAMMOCK
Photography by Tim Anderson
Make your own hammock in less time than it takes to read this.
Hammock. Barbecue. Canoe. Hurricane. All are important elements of life in the Southeast and Caribbean. And it turns out these are all words from the Arawak Indian language, dating back to before Columbus arrived in the “new world.”
Some things just don’t change, and it’s a good thing. The hammock is one of those things. There are lots of types of hammocks. The ones we’ve all seen are fancy, complicated ones that are good to sell to rich, industrialized people like us.
There are other types that are much easier to make. Ever wanted a hammock and not had one? You probably weren’t more than a few feet away from the materials needed to make one, and it wouldn’t have taken you more than a couple of minutes to make it.
Here’s how to make your own hammock in less than a minute:
1. Get a large piece of cloth such as a bed sheet. I didn’t have one to spare so I bought two roll ends of cotton cloth for a dollar a yard at a discount store. Use any kind of cloth that appeals to you. Most types of cloth will be strong enough when new.
SAFETY WARNING: When it gets old, eventually it will rip and you’ll fall onto the ground, just like the fancy commercial hammocks you’ve fallen out of in the past.
2. I’m making a big hammock, so I sewed the pieces of fabric side by side using a “flat felled” seam. Skip this step if you’re in a hurry or if you’re starting out with a sheet that’s big enough.
A few hammocks and tying techniques:
A. Varieties of hammocks are found all over the New World. These Nicaraguan students are sleeping while waiting for nesting turtles to come ashore in their study area. These very small hammocks are one of the traditional styles and are surprisingly comfortable. The ones shown are made of uncoated polypropylene and are sold in all the markets for next to nothing. Stacked on a shelf they look like shopping bags, and you wouldn’t know they were hammocks.
B. Detail of how this hammock is hung: The rope is passed through a large hem at the end of the hammock, bunching the cloth together. Then that end of the rope is tied with a bowline knot to make a loop. The other end of the rope is tied to a pillar or tree.
C. A fancier style of large hammock, this denim model is in a hotel on Isla Ometepe, Nicaragua. It was sewn just the same as the smaller hammocks seen above. Then a dozen or so slits were cut in the hem. The fingers of cloth thus created are tied with bowline knots to the ends of 5-foot chunks of colorful cord, forming loops to make the bridle.
D. Other end of the bridle: The loops of cord are gathered together into a single loop. This is whipped with a covering of cord knotted with a series of half hitches, one at each turn. The covering keeps the bridle lines from slipping and prevents the suspension rope from chafing through them. The suspension rope is tied to the loop with a lark’s head knot.
3. Bunch up both ends of your cloth. If your cloth is long enough and you want to be extra secure, tie an overhand knot in the ends of your sheet to keep the rope from sliding off.
OPTIONAL: If your cloth is long enough and you want to be extra secure, tie an overhand knot in the ends of your sheet to keep the rope from sliding off.
4. Tie a chunk of rope to each end of your sheet using a lark’s head knot (see MAKE, Volume 01, page 77).
5. Hang your new hammock between two stationary objects, get in, and relax. A nice feature of these cloth hammocks is that you can pull the sides closed over yourself and be very cozy inside. If the hammock is large, you can lie diagonally in it and have your spine totally straight. That’s how the Mayans do it.
Tim Anderson, founder of Z Corp., has a home at mit.edu/robot.