Today's image is just another cat photo – or maybe it isn't. I find the skill of these artisans to be quite amazing.
I took this photo on a visit to Suzhou in China in 1991. I was almost certainly in the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute but I've no remaining notes to confirm that.
You can see from this image that the artisan copies a photo or other image and scales it up. I didn't see any grids to aid in the scaling up, the artists all seemed to just judge the scale by eye.
Using fine silk threads, the young lady painstakingly recreated the cats' fur. I've no idea how many hours she would spend on this piece – I just know I don't have the patience.
