Practical guides for buyers and beginners: how to look at a piece, how to tell hand work from machine work, and how to care for silk once it is on your wall.
You do not need to stitch to appreciate embroidery, but knowing what to look at changes the experience. These guides are written for collectors, interior designers and first-time buyers rather than for practising embroiderers — the aim is confident looking, not a full course in needlework.
A five-minute routine for looking at a stitched silk panel: distance, light, transitions, edges, reverse and frame. No technical background needed.
Six concrete checks — sheen, thread thickness, transitions, reverse, repeat and edge — for separating hand-stitched Su embroidery from machine output and printed silk.
A practical, conservative care routine for a framed embroidered silk panel — what to do regularly, what to avoid, and when to call a conservator.
These topics are on our publishing schedule. We add a few each month rather than publishing everything at once, so each guide can be researched and photographed properly.
How a Suzhou embroidery piece is actually made: the stitches, the silk thread, the double-sided work and the framing decisions that decide how a panel will look for decades.
Open section → Section IIWhy Suzhou, why silk, and how a regional needle craft became one of China's Four Great Embroideries — from Song-dynasty workshops to contemporary studios.
Open section → Section IVWhat actually drives the value of a hand-stitched silk piece — hours, fineness, subject, condition and provenance — plus how a bespoke commission works.
Open section →Every piece in the collection is photographed in-house, with detail views of the stitching and the frame. If you are looking for a specific subject or size, we can also arrange a bespoke commission.
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