Resplendent Rilli

Pondering upon idea’s about what to write for my recently made blog account, I stumbled upon an old picture of a beautiful traditional hand made quilt that is now in the store room of my house in Pakistan. This resplendent, colorful, and vibrant quilt was made by one of our Sindhi* maid is a traditional handicraft known as Rilli. It is made with different old and colorful pieces of cloth, sewed in to a one big sheet. To make it warmer for winter weather a layer of cotton is added beneath the ravishing top. They are thinner than the normal quilt so they can also be used for summers. 

Picture Source:  http://forum.urduworld.com/f83/beautiful-culture-rilii-quilt-328182/

The origin of Rilli dates back to Indus valley Civilization, which is evident from the ruins of Mohenjodaro, the city of Indus valley civilization where pieces of fabric material, knitting machines and dyeing places has been found.

These village women take days to complete this beautiful piece of handicraft. They have never been to schools, so they have no technical training, all they know has been taught by their mothers. This shows us that we humans have magnificent brains; we can design beautiful things on our own. Since arts is in our nature we see design in everything, and this observation helps us to design magnificent works just like this Rilli. 

Picture Source:  http://forum.urduworld.com/f83/beautiful-culture-rilii-quilt-328182/

Rilli is made of different colored dyed pieces of old clothes, that are cut diagonally and very finely stitched in different creative patterns, each pattern is unique from the other some have squarish patches, circular patches and some have triangular ones. There are many patterns available, which puts a person in difficulty to choose from.