Meet Guramma

Guramma is a beggar with two small boys and an infant girl. She lives in a tent in a beggar slum with no running water or toilets. She cooks on an open fire. Her husband is a drunkard and beats her for money. She comes from a family of beggars and has no education, so she begs. When asked why she begs she says, "My children are eating mud. If I don't beg, they will have no food." Now Guramma and many other beggar and poor women come to a friend's center and help make sari throw blankets. They come daily with their children to receive a hot meal, take showers, receive nutritious food to cook, and get the medicines they need.

There are so many like Guramma. They now have the confidence to use a skill to make marketable items such as these beautiful throw blankets. You can read more about this technique below, and if you are interested in one of the vintage sari quilts, please email me at englishrootz@gmail.com.

Vintage Sari Kantha Quilts

Kantha is a type of embroidery popular in eastern South Asia. Vintage kantha throws (quilts) are made from vintage cotton saris stacked for thickness and sewn together with a running hand stitch. Each beautiful quilt is unique, and has different sari patterns and colors on each side. Rural women would make these blankets out of their old saris to keep warm in the cold season.