DIY: My first kantha blanket!

I was always fascinated by colourful eastern patters and textiles. One of these that I find lovely is the Indian kantha blanket. So using a couple of old sarongs, an old fleece blanket I decided to make my very own kantha. Although I am not a sewing person - just not accurate and patient enough for big sewing projects, I find that making kantha was fun (especially because the stitches don't have to be perfect and you can decide yourself the distance between the stitches). The stitches on my blanket have 0,5 cm in between in the middle of the blanket and 1 cm on the rest of it. Except for not requiring a huge accuracy and sewing techniques, the advantage is that you can use old fabrics, pieces for kantha, so you don't have to spend a lot of money to buy fabrics. Using an old fleece blanket in between the fabrics means that you can wash it safely wash it.

And of course the best advantage of it all - I found hand sewing soothing and fun while binge watching "Orange is the new black".

Now that I know how to make it, I ordered a number of beautiful used saris from India (you can find them on eBay for a very good price) which can perfectly make a huge blanket (saris are rather long - 4 meters on the length and 1-1,5 meters wide).

1 cm stitches in different colours 

Final result