Look closely at the shirt you are wearing. It is made up of minute threads woven compactly. That shirt was probably made on an industrial loom but it is still possible to have cloth woven on a manual loom, although in Malta it is a dying art.

Antoine Vella, 46, from Rabat, is the last weaver in Malta. When still much younger, he used to weave cloth, carpets, quilts and flannel shirts. Today, his main business is rugs. His father, born in 1908, used to weave the għonnella, the traditional rustic headgear of the village woman.

"The upkeep of looms is no easy task: “When you’re a weaver you also need to be a carpenter, a welder, a blacksmith. You simply have to work on improving your loom to make it more efficient,” Mr Vella said.

He talks about his trade with a passion and says that, despite the hardship of the job, he would never change it for anything in the world. “No day is ever the same for me. I wake up in the morning and I plan what I would like to do but, really and truly, nature dictates,” he said.

See more in video above.