China is famous for its various embroidery styles. And folks in the capital have enjoyed a chance to see some stunning embroidery work at the Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition being held at the Agricultural Exhibition Center.

Suzhou embroidery

Suzhou embroidery is crafted in areas around Suzhou of Jiangsu Province and has a history dating back some 2,000 years. It's famous for beautiful patterns, elegant colors, variety of stitches, and consummate craftsmanship.

Suzhou embroidery is mainly used in costumes and for decorations around the home, adding both decorative and practical value.

Huang Chunya, inheritor of Suzhou embroidery, said, "It's characters are smooth, bright and dense. The modern Suzhou embroidery blends many of the advantages of other embroidery styles."

Suzhou embroidery is famous for bringing the objects to life. The silk threads are separated into fine strands, as thin as one 48th of a hair.

This vintage delicate pony tail embroidery comes from the Shui ethnic group of Guizhou Province. Compared to Suzhou embroidery, it depicts mostly birds, dragons and fish with abstract lines.

Song Shuixian, inheritor of Pony Tail Embroidery, said, "To make the thread, one must use a combination of a white silk thread and several horse tail hairs. You can't make anything using only horse hair."

According to Song, only in this way can they keep the works from rotting and make them very durable. The embroidery style is widely used on items people use every day such as shoes and pouches.

This next work is a double faced, three dimensional flying dragon made using Clan embroidery from Guangdong Province. This work was used as a decorative screen in someone's home, and it's hard to imagine that it was done stitch by careful stitch. According to the inheritor, it also uses cotton and cloth to complete this piece.

Over the 10 day event, about 170 traditional craft inheritors and artists showcased some 2000 works.

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