Bangladesh · Embroidery / Textile
কাঁথা (Kantha)
Kantha (কাঁথা) is the Bengali tradition of stitching old cotton saris into layered quilted textiles using the running stitch — simultaneously quilting the layers together and creating the surface decoration. Bangladesh kantha is distinct from the Indian West Bengal kantha in its diagonal stitch vocabulary: Bangladeshi kantha uses diagonal stitches to fill and shade pictorial motifs — the exact technical inverse of the Maithili sujani tradition (CRAFT-0560) which uses horizontal-only stitches. The defining technical knowledge is the density-gradient shading: kantha pictorial motifs are shaded by varying running stitch density within a single color — close stitches for dark areas, widely spaced for light — creating an illusion of depth using only the white ground cloth showing through the colored thread. No second color needed — density is the shading instrument.
Risk level: Endangered · Bangladesh national ICH list; West Bengal state ICH list (cross-border tradition)
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