ISLAMABAD - Intermittent rains followed by a slight chill in the air, gentle sunlight in the afternoon and freezing cold from dusk to dawn are evident signs that winter has officially set in. Temperatures may be dropping with the passing days, but the bedding stores are just warming up as customers begin shopping for quilts and blankets. Bedding storeowners at G-6 (Aabpara and Melody Market), G-7, G-9, G-10, G-11, F-10, have not only started preparing the quilts but also put on display a wide range of quilts of various designs and fabrics. However, in G-10 and G-11 Markaz- which probably have the largest markets for quilts, bedsheets, blankets, and mattresses in the city, the owners are of the views that they are witnessing a downslide in business.
The business of hand-made and machine-made quilts and blankets is picking up gradually and will peak when the winter season will be in full swing. “We had been sitting idle for the whole month of September and even until mid-October. Finally we received some orders. Within two days my co-workers and myself finished sewing 15 quilts,” said Muhammad Ramzan, a quilt-maker working at a G-11 quilt store.
“I remember around seven to eight years ago we used to get orders for quilts from mid-September. Gradually our working season is getting shortened to hardly one month,” he added.
“Maybe it is because the increase in population density, mushrooming buildings, excessive energy burning and vehicles are gradually warming up the city,” he said, talking about the delay in the onset of winter. For quilt-makers of the city, this simply translates into fewer work orders, reduced earnings every year and a change of profession. Hamza Satti, a quilt maker from G-7 Markaz said, “Nowadays storeowners are using automated machines to prepare cotton, which has increased our working speed, but reduced our working period to only around a month.” “During peak season I used to make at least five quilts a day. Now it has come down to two on average. We have to think of alternative professions in the future if we want to survive,” he added. Hamza earns Rs 150 to 200 per quilt, which is not enough.
Qamar Hussain, another quilt maker at Aabpara market said, “Winter used to be our best season. We sewed at least four to five quilts a day. We used to spend the winter period making quilts and the rest of the year making pillows and mattresses. Now we sit almost idle during our best business season.”
Hussain usually earns around Rs 120 per quilt and is now preparing to change his profession. He said a quilt took about three hours to make by hand using only a long needle (kandooi) that looks like a bow and a needle. He informed that prices of cotton and other related stuff had gone up so that he was compelled to increase prices of new quilts. He said the cost of repairing old quilts had also increased owing to the price-hike. He said rates charged for mending old quilts varied and that he charged about Rs 200 to Rs 300 to repair a single quilt. Kashif Pervaiz, another worker of Quilt and Blanket Store at G-11 Markaz, said, “Traditional quilts are no longer the first choice of consumers because a big market of readymade light woollen blankets and comforters are gradually growing in the city.”
“People are opting for these items because the weather is never cold enough for traditional cotton quilts,” he added. “Moreover, woollen blankets and comforters are washable.”
He said that in making the quilts, Razai artisans of his community used the traditional textile - skills of cotton carding, cotton voile-making and quilting. He said that cotton carding was the process of preparing cotton to use as filling in a quilt. “A worker uses two carders. The carders are convex paddles covered with small, fine teeth,” he added.
Kashif said that workers charged the carders by placing cotton fibres onto one of the carders. Then the worker gently drew the other carder across the face of the first one several times, changing the position of the carders from horizontal to vertical. “In the process of carding, the cotton dross is exposed and removed. ‘Dross’ is simply waste material,” he said.
Removing the dross leaves behind soft, fine, delicate cotton fibres,” he said. He said that in a typical quilt, the worker started with one kilogram, (2.2 pounds) of cotton and worked at carding it for a week. After fully carding the cotton, the worker was left with a mere 100 grams (approximately 3.5 ounces) of cotton to use to fill the comforter.
“The lighter and fluffier the cotton filling, the warmer and cosier the quilts are. Once the fill is prepared, the artisans go on to make the quilts. It is important to layer the cotton evenly throughout the quilt,” he added.
Ahad Ahmed, who got his quilt mended from a roadside quilt-maker at I-10 markaz said that he was forced to get his old quilt repaired in view of the escalating prices of new quilts and blankets in the market.
A readymade polyester quilt is available in shops in the range of Rs 4000 to 5000 while a heavy quilt costs around Rs 2000. A customer looking for second hand quilts and blankets in a weekly bazaar of the federal capital said, even the prices of old blankets are out of the common man means. Another buyer opined that quilts and blankets were available at reasonable prices in the weekly bazaars at Aabpara, Peshawar Mor and Faizabad. It is not just the low-income group, but the middle class and upper middle class who are also opting for the light blankets sold in these sectors, at prices which range between Rs 2000 and 3000.
Vendors with blankets on their shoulders or bicycles are also seen selling this commodity in the streets and bazaars.
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