Story about Miao Embroidery
Guizhou is one of the few remaining places in the world where women are still involved in all the process to make their finest clothes, baby carriers and other living pieces by hand through spinning, weaving, cross-stitching, brocading, wax printing, and sewing. Because of the complicated process, this usually takes two to five years.
Miao embroidery is some of the most intricate and beautiful embroidery in the world which involves unique and complex stitches and is worked in brightly coloured lustrous floss silk with natural dyes. The special shinny fabric they use to create embroidery pieces is dyed with a mixture of pounded persimmon peels and chestnut shells to add a red tinge, coated with egg whites, pounded on a stone slab with a heavy wooden mallet thousands times to give shinny effect. The stitching techniques includes satin stitch, knots, two-needle stitches, ‘tin’ stitch, counted stitch and 20 other stitch methods, whereas there were more than 90 techniques in the old days.