I thought this was ordinary cord. Turns out it’s horsehair wrapped in silk
A friend recently gave me this small framed embroidery piece. At first, I assumed the raised lines were just some kind of cord sewn onto the fabric. I was very wrong.
After a bit of searching, I found out that it’s called Shui horsetail embroidery, from Guizhou, China. A few strands of hair from a horse’s tail are wrapped tightly in silk thread to make a thicker cord, which is then stitched onto the fabric to form the pattern.
I’d never seen horsehair used in embroidery before. Once I knew what was inside the cord, I had to go back and look at it more closely. The whole surface is much more three-dimensional than it looks in a photo, and you can really feel the raised stitching when you run a finger over it.
Has anyone else seen this kind of embroidery at a craft fair, museum shop, or online? I’d like to buy a small piece of Shui horsetail embroidery as a Christmas gift for a friend. Does anyone know where I might find them？