Li Faxou, the representative inheritor of Turkish plate embroidery. People's Daily Lei Yang photo
It is said that art is a mirror image of life, and life gives art the inspiration and power to recreate. In Qinghai Province's Mutual Aid Turk Autonomous County, the Turks' headdresses, collars, chests, braids, shoes and socks, pillow towels, needle ties, purses, cigarette bags... Turkish plate embroidery composed of sunflowers, swastikas, hui patterns and other patterns is commonly used in clothing decoration.
Plate embroidery on Turkish costumes. People's Daily Photo by Zhang Haoqian
Among the plate embroidery patterns, the most representative one is the sunflower, which is called "Expanding the Sun Lotus" in the local language, which is the traditional pattern when the Turkish aunts who have lived here for generations make the plate embroidery. The color of the embroidered works is also very exquisite, and the sunflowers embroidered by each person are different, but each has its own characteristics.
Traditional Turkish embroidery. People's Daily Photo by Zhang Haoqian
"In front of the nippon hall, the flowers are delicate, and they compete for a small pen to draw on the bed, embroidering it into the An Xiang Spring Garden, attracting yellow warblers to the wicker." The Turkish aunt on the needle plate, the next needle sewing, a needle and two threads, a needle and a thread back and forth between, flowers and birds, fish and insects, landscapes... It has become a place for embroidery ladies to send affection.
Turkish plate embroidery. People's Daily Photo by Zhang Haoqian
In 2006, Turkish embroidery was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. "We do not use scaffolding for embroidery, we operate it directly with both hands, the embroiderer holds the cloth in his left hand, the needle in his right hand, the thread that makes the coil is pinned to the right chest, and the thread that makes the stitch is worn on the eye of the needle." Li Faxou, the representative inheritor of Turkish plate embroidery, said that the stitching method of disk embroidery is very unique, and it is operated with two threads of the same color at the same time, one is a coil thread, and the other is a sewing thread, although it takes a lot of work and materials, but the finished product is thick and gorgeous, durable. Li Faxiu's embroidery stitching method is delicate and changeable, and the color of the wiring is bright and generous, which is widely praised.
In June this year, Qinghai Hair Show Handicraft Development Co., Ltd., run by Li Faxiu, was identified as a "Green Embroidery" poverty alleviation and employment workshop, where more than 20 embroidery girls found jobs. There are many poverty alleviation workshops like this, and there are many mutual aid counties. The Golden Pan Embroidery Company supported by the Embroidery Culture Office of the Mutual Aid Cultural Center conducts grid management of poverty alleviation and employment workshops, uniformly issues orders, uniformly recycles embroidery products, and then sends them to various sales points for sale, so as to increase the income of embroidery girls.
Traditional skills want to carry forward, simple production, sales is far from enough, tell the story of Turkish embroidery culture, introduce the old, enlarge the pattern can always maintain vitality. In mutual assistance, more embroidery girls began to use visual methods such as short videos to make the embroidery technique no longer a written adjective, no longer an abstract traditional cultural image, so that more people can see, love, spread and inherit intangible cultural heritage skills.
The colorful Turkish plate embroidery reflects the aesthetic attitude and value judgment of the ethnic group in terms of shape, color, quality and meaning, and provides fresh materials for ethnology, aesthetics and other research. With a thousand years of history, the Turkish embroidery has been passed down to the present, and has been seen, loved and sought after, so that countless embroidery ladies like Li Faxiu have inherited its cultural and artistic value that cannot be underestimated.