This is a luxurious large cotton hammock designed to withstand a total weight of 200kg. Only very few looms are capable of making a fabric 175cm wide.

You can gently swing in one of these hammocks, but take care not to swing too fast.

Making hammocks by hand has a long tradition in Brazil, particularly in the North East of the country. Over a dozen work stages are involved :

1. The cotton is first picked and spun by hand.
2. Around 3,500-4,500 threads of the correct length are counted off into bundles.
3. Each bundle is coloured with high-quality dyes.
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 correctly dyed threads cross threads are wound onto the spindles.
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.
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. In the meantime, the seamstresses will have finished sewing the sack for the hammock.
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.