The bundles are delivered to the Craft Resource Center stitching group, two and a half hours north of Kolkata.

   Next the women visually inspect each sari, then measure for cutting into the proper size for jackets or scarves.

Kantha Silk Scarves: Stitching Two Sari pieces together

   The two pieces of silk saris are then stitched with multiple rows of cotton thread. 

   The cotton thread used for stitching is actually waste leftover from the production of towels.

   Watching the Kantha stitching of silk sari pieces together to make a scarf or fabric for a jacket.

   Colorful Kantha stitched fabric

   Using treadle sewing machines, men in the co-op are the traditional tailors that fashion the fabric into jackets.

   Upcycled Kantha jackets!

The Company: The Red Sari

   Although Julie West's home is in Birmingham Alabama, her heart lives in Nepal and India. After 25 years in the health care industry and a second degree at the Clinton School of Public Service, Julie traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal for her international public service project where she met and fell in love with the people and their crafts. 

   A few years later while showing their imported work at the New York Gift Show, she met the adjoining booth owner Irani Sen from Kolkata, India. Irani had founded the Craft Resource Center as  a young struggling mother to help other marginalized and struggling women to better their lives. The two women became fast friends and partners. 

   Together they developed ways to benefit women by purchasing old silk saris that the women would stitch together to make fabric for beautiful scarves or jackets. 

 

   The Red Sari and The Craft Resource Center are members of the World Fair Trade Organization. Through this partnership these women and men have access to a global market and are guaranteed a fair living wage. 

   Recently when Covid 19 shut down business in India and the United States, both partners were able to advance wages which has helped during this challenging time.