EMBROIDERY by Gordon Victoria Selina

Sorry -The glare came from lights

 Two classes were held by the resident artists Gordon and Jordan one in embroidery and the other in snuff painting.

Gordon showed us the difference between the type of embroidery that you might  be offered by a street vendor (of which there were hundreds) and the type that was produced by his family-owned small factory, He showed us the different effects produced by straight stitches, cross stitches and the pass through stitch  -  the latter produced the same picture on both sides of the canvas. 

He explained that one standard thread is broken into 10 threads, sometimes more depending on how fine you want the thread used to be.  The embroidered tiger pictured below can be completed in 25 days by a reasonably talented experienced seamstress.

At the time we thought it was a mistake.  Gordon showed us a beautiful embroidered picture of himself as a toddler with his slightly older sister both sleeping leaning against a wall.  His parents both worked so it was up to his sister to take care of him.

His pants had the same slit up the back that we had seen at the zoo on a toddler (which we thought must be some kind of mistake).  He explained that in China, parents that cannot afford diapers use this type of apparel for their toddlers so they can squat and pee whenever necessary without soiling their clothes.  We an illustration of that at the Dam later on.

Squatting is a mandatory skill in China.  It starts early and continues throughout your life with the design of   Chinese toilets, so I suppose it would be normal to start the training young,

The children, panda and tiger were my favorites.  He passed around the actual embroidered pictures but I couldn't bring myself to take the picture when he was trying to sell them to us, so I took a picture of some framed  finished products. I guess the glare is insignificant since its free.

This is NOT something I am putting on my list of skills to acquire.  I can appreciate it, but I know I don’t have the patience to a. learn how to do it well and b. do it.