The story of the kantha blanket begins with the sari vendors. Kitchenware peddlers by day, they travel to rich women's homes to trade cooking pots and spoons for old saris. At night the kitchenware peddlers become sari vendors, spreading their wares in deserted markets and dimly lit alleys.
We once believed that sari-vendors were part of West Bengal's charming folklore. But then we went to the sari markets.
These are the sari vendors' children. The one in front wants my camera.
Sari vendors: geniuses who knew that old cloth would become a commodity.
Sari hunters: consumers with a fascination with vintage cloth.
The kantha blanket: six layers of vintage saris sewn together by a kantha stitch. Traditionally the poor woman's craft.
Every mother teaches her daughter the kantha stitch, and how to make her stitches small and straight. Every little girl, in turn, becomes a mother and makes kantha blankets for her daughters. Kantha blankets are a necessity to keep her children warm. Mothers dream of a good life for their daughters. No mother dreams that her daughter will be sold into prostitution, but many girls in Bangladesh are at high risk of trafficking.
Hand & Cloth offers dignified work to women at-risk and survivors of trafficking. Through creative enterprise and the transforming love of God, we encourage women to begin new lives. Each day at Hand & Cloth, women gather together to sew kantha blankets. Each blanket is sewn together with tiny rows of straight kantha stitches. We like the verse in Scripture that says, if you lose your way, "acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."
