Knitting in Cuba … NOT
Recently I was fortunate to make a US-approved People to People trip to Cuba. We were in two large cities, and of course I was interested in finding out whether anyone there knits.
The short answer is NO. There is some crochet, but mostly I saw beautiful hand embroidery:
I believe that yarn is inaccessible to the people there, and since it is quite warm, there is not much desire for knitted items in other than lightweight cottons.
Based on the tools that I saw in the fields — primitive by our standards — if knitting were in practice, one assumes it would be accomplished on hand-carved needles. I’m curious to find out, however, if other knitters know differently. If so, please share with us!
Let’s talk lace
Many Fix-A-Stitch fans are familiar with the original tool, but did you realize we have a lace weight version to help you with finer-gauge projects, too?
Bonnie created the “daintier” Fix-A-Stitch in response to her own need for something that would easily go in and out of lace weight stitches. Its flexibility lets the tool pick up that dropped stitch much more effortlessly than a standard crochet hook could.
Recently, Bon even found ANOTHER great use for the Lace Weight Fix-A-Stitch: An avid machine embroidery user, instead of “pushing” the thread through the holes on her 10-needle machine, she used the Lace Weight Fix-A-Stitch to pull the thread through. “It was MUCH easier. Because the Lace Weight Fix-A-Stitch has a slight bend to it, I could even do the bottom hole, where a traditional crochet hook wouldn’t fit.”
Here are two photos from her triumph:
Lace Weight Fix-A-Stitch tools are sold in packs of two. Share your Fix-A-Stitch story, and you could win a prize! Email us at bonnie@fixastitch.co for details.