bricolage

sweetpeapath:

Kantha: the Bengali tradition of quilt-making

Kantha is a centuries old tradition of intricate and beautiful embroidery practiced by women in Western South Asia, that is in Bengal (India) and Bangladesh. The art of kantha embroidery is often a social activity where two or more women work together on a single piece of kantha. Rural women worked during hours of leisure time or in the rainy season when it is too hot and humid to perform other laborious activities, thus its normal to finish a kantha in several months or even a year…

In the past, women made kantha quilts by recycling old sarees and dhotis (men’s wraparounds) and stitching several layers of cloth together with a running stitch to make a simple throw or quilt. Even the threads used for the embroidery were recycled and pulled from end of the same sarees.