The color of the silk thread

    The silk floss used in these fine embroideries must be custom dyed according to the specific design. The main color often requires six and seven shades to be dyed during the dying process. Ordinary embroidery uses ready-made silk threads and shades are limited to three to four colors at most.

The size of the silk thread

    For many designs, one strand of silk floss is divided into two threads. For fine embroidery, one silk floss will be divided into 12 thinner strands in order to achieve the smooth and natural look of the color and texture required by the design theme. The finest embroidery uses the thinnest possible threads to add detail to the design and allows subtle shading in the colors. In the “Tiger” embroidery a one strand of silk floss was divided into 24 strands. The finest embroidery uses the thinnest possible threads to add detail to the design and allow subtle shading in the colors. This technique is very good for making embroidery portraits. These 12– and 24– thread embroideries show richer and more natural color variation  than two-thread.  Each fine embroidery is a piece of art , and is highly prized among Asian art lovers.

The Random stitch embroidery

    Random stitch embroidery is a very new and unique embroidery style developed in the 1970’s by Ms. Yang Shouyu in China. It uses overlapping stitches to emulate with the brushwork and coloring of oil painting and sketching. As the name implies, this style uses stitches of different lengths and directions and seemingly random overlapping layers. Compared with traditional embroidery(2– thread) techniques, random-stitch embroidery has more details and rich, layered colors. It is ideal for embroidering portraits based on oil paintings or photographs.