White Peacock

ZHOU Jinxiu was the first Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts from Hunan Embroidery Research Institute. She produced embroidery for decades, exceling at embroidering peacock. The decades of embroidery practices gave birth to Zhou’s repertoire of peacock embroidery techniques. Pure white silk thread is used for the peacock in this work. Different parts of peacock like its head, back, and tail as well as dozens of techniques like the Long Stitch and Short Stitch, Straight Stitch, Fluffy Stitch, Fur Stitch, and Stem Stitch are involved. In addition, threads in color light yellow, light green, light red, tiger yellow as well as dozens of whites in different shades are used. From light to dark and from dark to light, it presents the varied textures in the peacock feather, which is exceptionally difficult.