CHEZVIES: online workshop

my first Kantha Embroidery

I joined a Kantha Embroidery Online Workshop early this month. It was a 3-day workshop and I really had a great time learning.

Brinda Ma'am and Nafisa are really patient with all of us and encourage us to take our time. I was pretty slow with my progress cos it was a busy week for me.

We started making a sampler stitch on day one. It's amazing to learn that all the beautiful Kantha designs are done only with one simple stitch. The art of creating design with one stitch is really challenging. Creatively challenging! Kantha is an embroidery art which is originated in Bengal (West Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, and Bangladesh).

The purpose of doing a sampler stitch is to familiarize us with the stitches and flow of work since it's different from regular embroidery. I have not done embroidery for years so the sampler really helped me. As I progress I noticed, my stitches are getting better. I used poplin cotton fabric and 3 strands of embroidery thread.

Once we're done with the sampler, we moved on to work on a design. We were given 4 designs by Nafisa and I chose this one below. Nafisa and Brinda Ma'am kept telling us to take our time deciding what stitch we want to use in our design. That way everyone will have a different result. It's really inspiring to see others embroidery even though we're using the same design but the end results are different. You can check others' works on the Moments of Quiet Facebook Page.

If you're interested to join the workshop, check out Moments of Quiet Facebook Page

While Kantha is widely popular, it is also loosely interpreted as just a big running stitch in quilting, which is basically not. Kantha is more intricate than that.

Nafisa showed us her 100 years old Kantha quilt belongs to her great-great-grandfather and also a few samples of Nakshi Kantha of Bangladesh.

Nakshi Kantha (Source: ich.unesco.org)

Kantha tells the story of cultures and history. While the Indian Kantha has evolved in terms of design, including animal and intricate floral patterns, the Bangladesh Nakshi Kantta still sticks to the original Kantha with geometric patterns.

I am glad I decided to join the class. Learning the history behind this ancient art is really refreshing. There are several books available on Amazon which I think I'll buy. Thank you Brinda Ma'am and Nafisa for the great workshop!

Here's our virtual selfie moment! Learning and sewing with others are really fun! I'm looking forward to join in more online workshops!