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<\/a><\/p>\nLook at the wonderful work these women are doing. A beautiful bobbin lace (bolillo) piece.<\/p>\n
Tatted sleeves, anyone? I would never have thought of it! This is tatting with pearl beads, and is a stunning piece. In black and white it would make the most elegant eveningwear, attached to a silk tunic. The tatting was perfectly done. Doesn\u2019t it look fabulous on Adriana? She did not make it, but since she was wearing the perfect green tank top she had to model it!<\/p>\n I happened to wear one of my Turkish scarves, which all the women loved. They asked to take photographs of it because they want to try their hands at crocheting this type of edging with fun, dangly flowers. I bet they\u2019ll have it figured out in no time!<\/p>\n Dazmira has her own booth nearby Adriana, where she displays her crocheted blouses, little girls\u2019 dresses, handbags and hats. She buys large containers of the pull-tabs from beer bottles for $1 CUC (about $1.15 US) with which she embellishes many of her handbags and hats. She also crochets with plastic shopping bags and old video tapes. You can find her on Facebook as Dazmira. \u00a0I’ll post a link when I get home.<\/p>\n As is typical in Cuba, you cannot give a gift without getting something in return, though this has taken almost two months for me to realize. I think this is what caused some awkwardness when I gave away some spools of tatting thread to the teacher at the Women\u2019s Federation in Santiago. Here, though, it was wonderful to see Adriana\u2019s face light up with the spools of lace thread I brought for her. She showed me a baby\u2019s outfit she made with this type of fine cotton. She took the pattern for a handkerchief edging (perfect square opening in the center for the neckline) and adapted it to make the bodice of a little boy\u2019s one-piece suit. I got weak in the knees when I saw the lace bodice on this outfit, but I could not bring myself to buy it. I don\u2019t have any grandchildren yet, and I don\u2019t want to jinx it!<\/p>\n Instead I bought two beautiful pieces of tape lace and a small Torchon centerpiece.<\/p>\n Adriana gave me a pair of tatted earrings done in navy and pale blue with fire polished crystals! I treasure them!<\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember this woman\u2019s name, but she turns out a lot of elaborate tatted projects. She made the interesting green and white beaded sleeves, and here she is modeling (against her will) a lacy tatted hat that has not been starched yet. It will be such a frivolous and fun accessory when it\u2019s finished.<\/p>\n The materials available in Cuba dictate the projects these women make. Most of the cotton threads are thicker than we are familiar with for doing tatting or bobbin lace. If I\u2019d known so many of these women tat, I would have brought much more of that. Ah, well.\u00a0\u00a0 The tatting projects and bobbin lace projects are done with cotton that is considerably thicker than what we use in the US. Some of it looks like cotton floss, but even thicker\u2014almost like a 12 strand floss. I can see it is NOT easy to work with in tatting because it splits so easily. Still, these women manage very well.<\/p>\n Adriana believes that they can now receive mail from the US. Boy, I hope so. I will send them more fine threads to work with. They oohed and ahhed over the threads I brought with me, and of course you can fit a lot of thread in a small package. The problem will be with mail service between the US and Cuba, and hopefully Adriana is right that things have already changed.<\/p>\n Internet in Cuba is challenging since it is rationed, so although there is plenty of information online these women cannot access it.\u00a0\u00a0 I bet it will be at least a month before I settle back into taking internet access for granted when I get home. It\u2019s been highly frustrating here!<\/p>\n There were two handwoven scarves on Adriana\u2019s display. When I questioned her about them she told me they had been woven by a man. I made all kinds of motions to describe a rigid heddle loom, and she was nodding her head through my whole pantomime, so I think that\u2019s what was used to weave these scarves.<\/p>\n Adriana is very interested in having instructions to make a simple floor loom, so I will be on the lookout for that when I get back home. I have not found any handweaving in Cuba, and she confirmed that herself. She did not know the word for handwoven in Spanish, nor the word for \u2018loom.\u2019 She was calling it the \u2018machina por maya,\u2019 the machine for fabric, until I wrote down the word \u2018loom\u2019 for her in her notebook.<\/p>\n Hidalgo<\/a> joined us again, and Adriana teased him that he already knows so much about handwork he should start crocheting himself! And that\u2019s when I learned that he paints, and sculpts and does woodworking in his free time. The people who have booths on the Paseo del Prada are very interesting, and I know I would enjoy getting to know them better! I hope we can stay connected through email\u2026we have all exchanged email addresses.<\/p>\n In the end we discussed the value of handwork. When I said that not many women do handwork in the US, and that when they see it for sale many women are shocked at the price we ask for handwovens, lace, knitting\u2026etc. These Cuban women agreed. They said young women in Cuba want inexpensive, manufactured garments. We agreed that in both the US and in Cuba women who do handwork are the biggest supporters of textile handwork! We buy from each other! In the photo below, from left to right: me, Adriana, Nancy, and Dazmira.<\/p>\n Later in the day, near the restaurant we enjoyed on Mercederes we found a small gallery of woodcut prints. A group of artists were working together, sharing a printing press that had been donated by Unicef.\u00a0\u00a0 The gallery itself was part of a beautiful historic building.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n