The Kantha – an education

You ever heard of a kantha quilt? Yeah, a year ago we hadn’t either. Oh, we had seen them; we just didn’t know what to call them. Let’s break the phrase up for analysis.  Kantha refers to a type of embroidery, a simple primitive stitch–most frequently a long running stitch. And quilt, well, I guess not much analysis is needed on that subject.  So a Kantha quilt is a quilt made using this kantha stitching, capeesh??

Kantha embroidery is used to bind colorful cottons in every pattern or hue you can imagine. What do you do with one of these things? Kantha quilts are used–by us, anyway–for throws or coverlets, and pillow covers. A few months ago, we covered a wall in them. Who knows what we will come up with next? As for you, we completely trust your creativity in purposing or repurposing these quilts.

Here, in the US, the quilts are beginning to pop up here and there. And one of those here’s is here at Simple Things. We have sort of fallen in love with these things. We love the texture, the color, the size, the way they can add a strong and fresh dose of color to a room. We love them so much, we really stocked up. You know how we love a collection. And just one, or two, or fifty of something is sometimes not enough to suffice. And so, of course, we brought home 340. Did you get that – 340?? Do you have any idea what that looks like? Well, it’s a lot. We are guessing that we have the biggest selection of kantha quilts in the country and maybe even further–there is no research data to confirm this, but we defy you to find a larger stash.

Here are approximately 20 kantha quilts that our lovely assistant is holding. The stack is in the neighborhood of 36″. So mathematically (and with math help from a recent high school graduate), our stack of kanthas would be 51 feet high! That’s like a building – a 4-ish story building. That wouldn’t fit in our clerestory. Somebody call the Guinness book.

What relevance does the size of this gargantuan pile mean for you? Glad you asked – This means we have the exact color you are looking for, because honestly, we have every color in the rainbow. Every single one. Really.

And here’s the really cool thing about OUR kantha quilts. We pre-washed every single one. That’s right. We laundered all 340. So when you come pick yours out, it will be clean and soft and perfect.

And one more note. We have been displaying them for the last week or so, and they are trickling out of here. When you swing by to pick yours up, ask to see them…although, you might find them with very little assistance, since you literally run into them as soon as you walk in the door, neatly contained in the biggest armoire you have ever seen.

*This photograph contains a part of our inventory. A part. Seriously, we have a lot.