Silk and Embroidery in Suzhou

The delta around Suzhou and Hangzhou has raised silkworms and reeled silk for millennia, and the whole chain is still on show: mulberry leaf, feeding trays, cocoons dropped into hot water, and filament reeled off in threads too fine to see singly. Two products stand out. Quilts are made by stretching double cocoons into a gauze and pulling them out by hand, four people to a corner, layer on layer until a bed-sized batt of floss is built. Su embroidery works with thread split from one strand into dozens, producing double-sided panels that carry a different image on each face of a single piece of gauze. The craft sits on the UNESCO intangible list.

What you actually see

• The reeling - cocoons in hot water and the filament wound off onto a spool.
• Quilt pulling - workers stretching cocoon gauze by hand into a bed-sized layer of floss.
• Double-sided embroidery - one panel of gauze carrying a different picture on each side.
• Brocade looms - drawlooms worked by two people, one of them sitting above the frame.

When to go

Workshops keep normal daytime hours all year and the demonstrations run continuously. Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons in Suzhou and pair well with the gardens. Allow an hour for a museum, longer if you want to watch embroiderers work, which is slow, quiet and the most interesting part of the visit.

Honest expectations

Most silk stops on coach itineraries are shops with a five-minute demonstration attached and staff on commission, and the pressure to buy a quilt is heavy. Real hand embroidery is expensive because a good double-sided piece takes months. Market silk labelled as such is often blended or synthetic, and the burn test sellers offer proves little.

Nearby

Suzhou's classical gardens and canals are in the same city, and Hangzhou is under half an hour by train.