China Talk Tuesday - Needlepoint

When I hear the word "needlepoint," I usually think of young English ladies, forever sitting in parlors and perfecting their stitch. Or perhaps of beautiful cross stitch works, depicting the words of the sages, or little geese.

(This cross stitch was a wedding gift from a friend and depicts the Seattle Temple, where Lo Gung and I were married.)

However, there is another sort of needlepoint that is so vastly different, it really ought to have its own word. (Lo Gung? Help me out here?)

I'll call it Chinese embroidery. (Click through for a Wikipedia article explaining, briefly, the several styles of Chinese embroidery.)

This piece was a gift from Lo Gung's sister. Koi are a common embroidery subject, as they are considered both beautiful and lucky.

You can see how intricate the stitching is!

This next piece is one that Lo Gung and I haggled for when we were in China. It is different from the fish in that every square inch of that linen is covered in thread. We almost passed it by - it was the most expensive in the small shop. It is beautiful, for sure, but....

Then the shopkeeper showed us the other side of the frame.

It is fairly common for an embroidered picture to be double sided, on a single piece of cloth. Lo Gung's parents have a small embroidery on their mantle that is double sided - a kitten on one side, and its mirror image on the other.

None of us had ever seen a double sided picture with completely different pictures on each side! One corner of this piece took a month to complete. This is such a treasure!

Art forms like this are dying out. Young girls are being trained to be useful in the workforce, instead of as artists. This situation isn't unique to China - my great-grandmother made beautiful quilts, out of necessity, to keep her family warm. My grandmother made several quilts as well.

I've made one quilt, and it's currently at my sister's house. Falling apart. One stitch at a time.

There's been a sentiment rolling around the blogosphere lately that women can, and ought, to learn to Create Something. Somehow, it seems programmed into our genetic make up. (Sorry guys...you can create, too!) There's something so satisfying about sitting down with a pair of scissors, a piece of cloth and a sewing machine, and standing up with a finished product - a skirt, an apron, a napkin - when I turn the machine off. I'm hoping that I can teach BBJ and Siu Jeun how to create, in their own ways. It could be drawing, painting, sewing...or even making little creatures out of playdough!

I'm so glad that we invested in a few beautiful things from China. I'll be sharing some of them with you guys over the next few weeks. You're in for a treat!!

(Close- ups of each side of the double sided picture.)