In Pakistan, Rilli is a traditional hand-made quilt that is stitched by rural women of Sindh.
Many of the designs are very complex.
The designs are not written down but are held in the women’s memories and are
passed down from mother to daughter. Small squares of fabric are cut out
(similar to a paper “snowflake”), edges are turned under and sewn unto
the block fabric. Embroidery quilts are the speciality of a few nomadic groups
especially the Saami. These quilts generally use a large piece of whole or
patched cloth and using colored thread, have stitching in embroidery designs go
through all the layers of the cloth.
The applique and patchwork rillis are very dynamic and graphic and often have a
very contemporary “op art” look. The applique blocks are smaller and
therefore the applique patterns are much finer. Indeed, the patterns are
prepared by folding the and cutting the fabric through
all the layers.
The variety of rilli patterns is
intriguing. The motifs appear to have originated far back in the history of the
Indus Region. The carvings of the desert tombs of Sindh and Baluchistan
(covering about 400 years starting in the middle of the fifteenth century AD)
have many similar motifs. The geometric designs in the blocks of carved stone
are very similar to quilt blocks. Some of the lines in the stone look to
some like lines of stitching. However, going back farther than this are
clear similarities between rilli designs and ancient painted pottery of the
region (most from about 2000-800 BC). The majority of the patterns are
based on a geometric grid but there are also patterns based on circles, stars
or flowers. Some of the designs that are shared by the rillis and pottery are
simple including checkerboards, lines and triangles, yet others are complicated
patterns using many shapes and design elements together.
One of the interesting aspects of the ancient
pottery is that archaeologists think that the pots may have been painted by
women as there are some small fingerprints still visible in the paint.
Scholars report pottery with painted motifs seemed to have been replaced in the
first millennium BC by plain, undecorated pottery yet the old designs continue
in rilli and embroidery designs today. Even though ancient records are
scarce, we know that quilting is an old tradition in the region. (Quilts
are listed as an export item from western India to Europe on trade records from
the early 1500s.) Could the women have passed on the traditional cultural
designs from mother to daughter for many thousand years and at some point used
them in quilts? There is a good example in the region where an ancient
tradition survives today. In old graves from the time of painted pottery,
women were buried wearing many white bangles. Women in the same rural
areas today still wear multiple white bangles. Perhaps the ancient motifs
have survived in their quilts as the tradition of bangle jewelry has survived
on their arms.