Shopping: a beautiful Fair Trade jaipuri razai

After donating my winter down duvet to charity and investing in a luxurious natural and vegan-friendly 100% natural bamboo duvet I’d maxed out on my bedding budget. The bamboo duvet is the best I’ve ever had but it’s not going to cut it during the colder months. I decided to get a lovely quilt, something I could treasure forever made with natural fibres. My search to me to Pinklays shop on Etsy which is based in India which is unsurprising when you see the beautiful vibrant colours.  I spoke to Daisy Tanwani, the owner to ask if the duvet was Fairtrade and got the best reponse:

“All our merchandise is made under fair trade. Furthermore, we encourage women employment. We also regularly work to upskill artisans and get them to the workforce.”

It’s lovely to hear how the quilts are made too: “100% premium cotton inside out. A quilt making process is akin to making an elaborate piece of art. A concept is first developed into wooden & metal blocks with hand taking days for a skilled artisan to complete, then these blocks are soaked in oil for days to get them smooth and ready to print. These blocks are then used by a skilled artisan on pre-washed natural white cotton base. A quilt can take as many as 1400 hand block stamps to finish painting. Further, the quilts are filled with 100% cotton and hand quilted into various patterns by skilled women artists.”

Decision made. I was interested to know more about the work as I love hearing the story behind such beautiful craftswomanship! Daisy told me:

“At Pinklay, we look for inspiration from all around us; culture, history, folktales et all. One of our headlining collections last year was called Kalpvriksha. It is Hindi translation for The Wishing Tree. In Hindu mythology, Kalpvriksha holds tremendous meaning, it is a symbol or life and prosperity. It gives and celebrates. We wanted to make a collection that was all of these things and more. So, we made various elements of it – the tree, birds, flowers, fruits etc – it looked abundant exactly how we envisioned it. We loved the parrot so much (who doesn’t, it bears the most beautiful green ever) that we decided to give it it’s own space and make a full quilt and blanket of it. So here we are with this gorgeous Jaipuri Razai (It’s another name for quilts in Hindi, though now a famous word globally), made in 100% cotton muslin, hand block printed, hand quilted and packed with a lot of love and good wishes. We don’t work with synthetics and all our merchandise is responsibly made in India.”

The quilt arrived packaged beautifully in a cotton bag and came with 2 free tree cushions which you can see in the photo below which showcases the whole range:

Stunning. I absolutely love the quilt and I love contributing to such a lovely craft done with pride and socially responsible business. I’d love to see how these are made. Maybe they’ll let me go over and see for myself one day.