Chinese Embroidery is a brilliant pearl in Chinese art. The history of silk begins in China--silkworms were domesticated as early as 5000 years ago. Silk, in textile and embroidery form, were the main products transported along the ancient Chinese Silk Road. The production of silk thread and fabrics gave rise to the art of embroidery.
Simple Chinese embroidery decoration was customarily worked on wool, linen, and hemp cloth from Neolithic period. It was never classified as a solely female activity and men and women have both been involved in embroidery. The items embroidered are quite diverse and include robes, theatrical costumes, purses, shoes, spectacle cases, banners, alter cloths and many other pieces. Some of the pieces were so finely stitched that the pieces took 5-6 people several years to complete. Following are four kinds of techniques often used in Chinese embroidery.
Seed Stitch
Seed Stitch also known as Knot Stitch, Chinese Knot, Peking Knot, French knot, Ring Embroidery, or Forbidden Stitch. These terms all consistently refer to small knots made on the fabric surface by wrapping a heavy embroidery thread, usually silk floss, around a needle and then stitching it down.
This has been done with varying numbers of wrappings and degrees of complexity. Wang Ya rong says that more than twenty varieties of knot stitch can be found throughout history--presumably in East Asia alone. She mentions that early relics of this stitch have been found in an Eastern Han tomb at Nuoyinwula, Outer Mongolia, and even earlier examples on a pair of silk shoes discovered in a tomb of the Warring States period in Linzi, Shandong Province.
Among actual Chinese embroideries, it is unusual to find the knots so widely spaced or scattered as in the drawing. The spacing is dependent upon the length of the connecting stitch on the underside of the fabric.
Each knot is indeed separate, however, and this distinguishes the stitch most clearly from the Pekinese Stitch shown later on this page. The example below represents the kind of knot stitch most often found in extant late 19th century Han Chinese costumes-- looped once around the needle, fairly flat and closed, worked in rows that are combined to fill sizeable areas.
Knotted stitches
Knotted stitches are formed by wrapping the thread around the needle, once or several times, before passing it back to the back of the fabric ground. This is a predominate stitch in Brazilian embroidery, used to create flowers. Another form of embroidery that uses knots is Candle wicking, where the knots are created by forming a figure 8 around the needle.
Cross stitches
Cross stitches or cross-stitch have come to represent an entire industry of pattern production and material supply for the craft person. The stitch is done by creating a line of diagonal stitches going in one direction, usually using the warp and weft of the fabric as a guide, then on the return journey crossing the diagonal in the other direction, creating an "x".
Straight stitches
Straight stitches pass through the fabric ground in a simple up and down motion, and for the most part moving in a single direction. Straight Stitches have two journeys-generally forwards and backwards over the same path.
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