ESSENTIAL GUIDE Hand Quilting Kantha Designs

“Kantha quilting is an easy form of hand quilting that can bring an eye-catching and distinctive look to any piece of patchwork.”
– Lin Clements

WHAT IS KANTHA QUILTING?

Kantha quilting, sometimes called Indian quilting or embroidery, is a type of hand quilting originating from Bangladesh and West Bengal in India. It is characterised by multicoloured rows of running stitches and is used to decorate all sorts of items, including clothing, wallhangings, decorative objects and household textiles. Kantha work features highly-decorative motifs and patterns, including gods and goddesses, the tree of life, flowers, plants, birds, animals, fish and geometric shapes. In its simplest form, kantha quilting is worked on multiple layers of fabric, originally recycled sari fabrics, where rows of running stitch often fill a motif. Designs can be highly elaborate and complex and often tell a story. The stitches do not have to be small, in fact they are meant to be seen. As with most hand quilting, the evenness of the stitches is more important than the stitch size. In this article, we will look at the basic method of kantha quilting, showing different patterns of stitches you could try. There are also some motifs supplied in the Templates section (page 90) for you to experiment with the technique.

FABRICS, THREADS AND NEEDLES

Fabrics

Originally, kantha patterns were quilted