Touched by Indigo - Royal Ontario Museum

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EMBROIDERY
Blue-and-white embroidery is a convenient term used in the
West to refer to a distinctive type of Chinese embroidery characterized
by a blue-on-white or white-on-blue colour scheme. The
decorative motifs are delineated with cotton thread, using as a base
cloth mostly cotton, but sometimes linen and other fabrics. Although
many styles of stitching are employed, cross stitch is the mainstay.
This is because counted thread is best suited for textiles
with even weave. The Chinese have several names for
cross-stitch embroidery: tiaohua ([embroidery with] pickout
motifs), jiazihua ([embroidery with] motifs worked in a
frame-like stitch), and shizihua ([embroidery with] motifs
worked in a stitch resembling the character for ten).1 To
distinguish embroideries executed in a single-coloured
scheme from the multicoloured ones, they call the former
sutiao ([embroidery with] monochromatic pick-out [motifs])
and the latter caitiao ([embroidery with] polychromatic pick-out
[motifs]).2
Cross stitch is simple and easy to learn. Since embroidering
with this stitch requires neither a hoop nor a frame, it can be done
anytime and anywhere. The basic materials required for its execution,
namely cotton, flax, and ramie, are readily available in many
parts of China. It is, therefore, not surprising that this particular type
of embroidery is widely practised. While caitiao can be found almost
all over China, sutiao is limited to provinces in southern China and
the island of Taiwan in the South China Sea.
Blue-and-white embroidery has been done strictly by women,
among both the Han nationality and the ethnic groups. On the
whole, the Han Chinese embroiderers belong to the peasantry or the
working class living in rural areas. In addition to managing sundry
chores, these women still find time to make good use of their sartorial
skills which they have learned since a tender age. They make
clothes and accessories for themselves and their loved ones, often
lavishing delightful embroidered designs on items for their own use
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and the children's wear. In order to make their humble living quarters
a little more attractive, they also make household accessories, such
as bed valances, bed curtains, quilt covers, pillow covers, and tablecloths,
adorning them in a similar fashion.
Embroidered articles often also form part of a bride's trousseau.
Her work would be displayed in her new home on her wedding day
and her needlework would be judged by her in-laws, as well
as their relatives and friends. Embroideries may also be given
away as gifts or sold to garner extra income for the family.
During the 1930s, for example, an embroidery market was
organized on the first and fifteenth days of every month in
Pixian, a county in western Sichuan popularly known as the
"hometown of cross-stitch embroidery."3 Often, as many
as several thousand embroiderers would flock to the marketplace.
While peddling their ware, they would also observe
other people's work to seek inspiration. At the end of the day the
most outstanding embroideries would be selected and prizes would
be given out to their creators. The opportunity to observe, compare,
and learn from other people's work, the spirit of competition, and
the incentive to earn recognition and money to benefit the family all
worked together to spur the embroiderers on.
Through public sale, embroidered commodities reached far and
wide. Some of them became models for emulation. There were also
other ways for ideas and techniques to be transmitted. As an example,
when word of particularly skilled embroiderers spread, embroidery
enthusiasts would travel to neighbouring or faraway villages to learn
from their reputable peers. This is why certain themes and designs are
quite similar in works produced in areas geographically far apart.
Foreign missionaries, too, played a role in popularizing Chinese
cross-stitch embroidery abroad. During the first few decades of the twentieth
century they set up embroidery cooperatives to instruct women and
schoolgirls from poor families to embroider linens for sale in Western
markets, thereby enabling them to augment their family income. Both
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