Solo Hammock Repair

[Ashka]

58 Winter 517

Ashka took the sticks from the hammocks that had torn or broken in the earthquake and examined them as best she could. They were about a foot and a half long, carefully varnished by someone to a deep reddish brown color, and smoothed. She ran her fingers over them to check for rough spots that would fray a rope too quickly, and gingerly tried to bend them to test for strength. They mostly seemed to be in good condition, the earthquake had just overcome the strength of the rope. Two of them proved to have cracks in and she set those aside, but the intact ones could be re-used. She unpicked what was left of the hammock netting and used the handful of intact lengths as a measure to cut new lengths of rope. This way, the new rope would match the old rope when she wove them back together.

The rope wasn't so thick that it would dig into a person's back when they lay in it, but not so thin that it wouldn't take much weight or use to snap it. Ashka liked to balance it on rope that was about half an inch thick, but anything between a quarter and three-quarters of an inch could work, depending on the strength of the rope. She needed fourteen ropes to form the main body of the hammock. She counted the ropes out, spreading them across the warm sands of the beach, and folded each one in half.

Taking one of the sticks in one hand and the first of the ropes in the other, she wrapped the fold around the stick, brought the ends of the rope through the loop, and pulled it tight. That created a knot that sort of looked like a bird and therefore was called a lark's head. It would hold the rope securely to the stick as long as she kept an even pressure on both ends of the rope. She set the first rope down and picked up the second, attaching it in the same way, slowly working her way along the stick to fasten all the ropes onto it in lark's head knots.

Once she had all of the ropes fastened to the stick, she took a shorter, thicker, piece of rope and tied it onto the ends of the stick so that the main ropes couldn't easily slide off. In that way, it was a little like the warp wound onto the sticks of her loom. A convenient tree branch provided a spot to hang the stick and ropes from. She carefully straightened out the ropes so that they wouldn't tangle, and seperated the halves of the paired ropes. She would need to work with each half of each of the folded ropes on its own in order to make the hammock netting correctly. A breeze tugged at the edges of her scarf, and she smiled. It had taken long enough for her to get to these. She wanted to get them done right.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka began on the left hand side of her set up. She let the very first rope half just lie there for this row, but took the second half in one hand and the first half of the second folded rope in her other hand. She wanted a flat knot that wouldn't dig into the user and make the hammock uncomfortable to use. The only flat knot that she knew well enough to do it without a teacher looking over her shoulder was the one she'd learned on ship to reef the sails so that was the one that she used.

She brought the left rope over the right rope, and carefully threaded it round and through the loop that the two ropes crossing had made. That switched the ropes around so that the working rope was on the right and the other rope was on the left. She brought the new right hand rope over the new left hand rope and again threaded it slowly up and through the loop. She pulled the knot tight, and she had a V shape like the lower half of a diamond with the point where the ropes were knotted together.

She let those two ropes drop again, and picked up the next two which, again, were halves of two different folded ropes. She tied them the same way as the first pair, and continued on across the ropes, fastening them together across the original folded pairs. When she reached the right hand side, she had an odd rope there, because she had left the first of the ropes untouched. That had been a deliberate choice, and she let that last rope just hang as well and went back to the left hand side.

Once there, she took the rope that she had ignored on the first row, and the other rope of that pair, and measured down almost a hand-length. She fastened them together at the end of the gap with one of the flat reefing knots, and left extra slack in the rope that hadn't been used on the first row. The two ropes formed a wonky triangle along the edge of what would become the hammock, just over a hand span in length. It took more rope, she had noticed, to make the two short sides of the triangle than it did the long straight side.

Moving along to the next pair which, again, had been one of the original pairs, she knotted them together, creating a diamond here instead of a triangle. She tried to tie the knot level with the previous one, but her hand slipped and pulled it a little shorter. It left the line a little crooked and she grimaced at the sight. She had wanted this to be right, and it looked very much as if she wasn't yet up to the standard she wanted to be. She was better than she had been, she knew that much, but she had so much more to learn.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka glared at the crooked line for a long moment and then began to unpick the knot. That way she could re-do it and keep the line straight and even. Leaving it crooked wouldn't just look unsightly, it would most likely throw later lines off as well and leave the entire hammock distorted and out of true. The knot resisted at first, and then slowly came apart under her stubborn fingers. She smoothed out the kinks in the rope, left from where the knot had been pulled tight, and tried again. This time she took it slower and with more care, and the lower tip of the new diamond ended up level with the previous start to the row.

She gave it a final glare, and herself yet another silent warning against becoming complacent, and moved on to the next pair of ropes, the next knot, and the next diamond. She worked her way carefully and thoroughly across the full width of the row, finishing with another wonky triangle that used that last rope that she had left hanging on the previous row.

Moving back to the start, she again left the first rope hanging, as she had on the first row, measured the length of a diamond and knotted the next two ropes. It was important to alternate which ropes were knotted to which, as it was the alternation that created the diamond pattern and gave the finished hammock the strength to hold a person's weight without giving or stretching too much. A similar pattern on a smaller scale and thinner rope was used to weave a fishing net, and she had made and mended those often enough. Perhaps another time, she thought, as she worked along another row, she could use different colours of rope to add a visible pattern to the hammock, on top of the simple pattern of knots. It would take care, and she would have to search out a dye that would neither damage the rope nor fade too fast in the sun, but it would get her started on patterned work at least.

Weaving a net - or a hammock - was a different technique to weaving cloth, but in the end weaving was weaving. The repetition made it almost like a moving meditation in that she could, if she wished and felt safe enough, sink into the work and let it soothe her and clear her mind. For now though, she was more interested in increasing her focus than in letting the rhythm pull her out of focus so that she relied on touch and muscle memory to get the task done. Some day, one day, not this day. For now, she finished another row of diamonds in rope and paced back across the growing length of her work to start yet another one. Measure and knot and check and pace. Check the ropes so that they don't tangle. Undo mistakes and re-do them and check and measure and check once more.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka worked on, row by row, and feeling the hammock increase in length as she worked. At first it was fine. The ropes were hung well up on the tree and she could reach up to work. As she went on, she had to work lower, but she was only working at shoulder height and then at chest height. It was a relief after having had to reach up, but the relief didn't last. Soon she was having to work at waist height, which wasn't good, but was doable. Then she was having to stoop to work and that ached more than she liked to admit. She spent too much time sitting and bending over a loom as it was. Stooping from standing didn't feel much like a good idea at all.

She sighed and stretched, digging her thumbs into her back to loosen the knots in her muscles. If this had been a real loom, she could have rolled it shorter to adjust it to a more comfortable distance and angle to work. She paused to think about that. There was no real reason why she shouldn't roll up the hammock, if she was careful. Finished hammocks got rolled up for storage all the time, after all. If she just took enough care that the half finished ropes didn't tangle with each other, she would be fine.

She considered the options once more, and then lifted the stick and fastening rope free of the tree branch. If this was a loom.... She tentatively tried turning the stick, but it slipped inside the loop of the lark's head knots, spinning in place rather than winding up the ropes and diamonds. "Shyke," she muttered. She picked up a spare, clean stick, laid it against the hammock support, and turned the two sticks together. That solved the problem of the stick spinning at least.

Keeping it even was also a problem. Unlike cloth on a loom, which was at least an even thickness all the way across, a hammock or net was all gaps and ridges. It bunched and stretched as she rolled it and she had to keep stopping to spread it out and stop it from rubbing raw against itself.

She got it done eventually, and fastened the sticks together temporarily to prevent it unrolling the moment that she let go of it. She hung it back up on the tree branch and gave it a very satisfied grin when she saw that she had to reach up slightly to work on the next row. For this first renewed row of diamonds, she moved slowly and warily, careful not to pull too hard as she knotted the ropes together. She was afraid that tugging would undo the rolling up that she had just completed, or skew the hammock sideways. It was harder to tell if it was straight and even like this but the renewed comfort for her work made it worth it. Still, one complete row would give her a baseline to judge against once more.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka finished that row, and checked it over carefully. She thought that it was level but the accuracy of that perception depended on whether she had rolled the hammock up level. She frowned over it, and then sighed. She wasn't going to waste her time unrolling and re-rolling the hammock constantly to check and soothe her anxious mind. She thought that she had rolled it evenly and neatly. It looked neat and even - or as neat and even as a hammock could. What she had was just going to have to do.

She sighed, pushed a stray strand of hair back under her scarf, and started on the next row, careful to leave some slack in the crooked triangles at the edge of this one. She was slowly and steadily drawing near to the other end of the hammock and it would look tidier if the ropes were all close to the same length - although, she supposed, if they were not, she could always trim them after she had made the final knots and fastened the other stick in place. It would be a waste of rope, but maybe she could pick it back down into fibres and re-spin it.

She went on, now keeping a close eye on how much rope she had left. She did need to keep enough to fasten the net of the hammock securely onto the end stick after all. She was stooping to her work again now, and she gritted her teeth against the building ache. She finally went to one knee to finish the last row rather than struggle through rolling it up once more.

With the final row completed, and the last of the rope hanging limp, Ashka retrieved the end stick, and sat in the dirt as she would to use her loom. She laid the stick across her thighs, shifting until it sat as level and balanced as she could get it. She took the first of the ropes, wrapped it twice around the stick, then once around itself. She tucked the end through the loop wrapping it around itself had made, pulled it tight, then wrapped it round itself a second time and pushed the end through that loop as well. A cautious tug reassured her that it was firmly secured - at least as long as it didn't slide off the stick. She would fix that with a hanging loop, as she had the larks' heads on the first stick.

Meanwhile, she had the rest of the ropes to attach. She left the last little bit of the first rope sticking out and went on to the second rope. Again, she took it twice around the stick, and then around itself. She fumbled with tucking it through the first time. The previous rope hampered her movements more than she had expected that it would. She had to undo the attempt and start again, making the loop slightly bigger this time, but she got it done and the second loop was easier. By the third, she knew what to expect.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

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Name: Ashka
XP Award:

• Weaving 5
• Observation 2
• Mathematics 1
• Planning 1
• Endurance 2
• Bodybuilding 1
• Logic 1

Lore:

• Weaving: lark's head knot
• Diamond pattern increases strength
• Weaving: using discards to measure new lengths
• Weaving: reef knot
• Weaving: round turn and two half hitches
• Math: the long side of a triangle is still shorter than the sum of the short sides

Loot: Mended hammocks

Notes: Self graded