Tanghui Embroidery During the Spring and Autumn Period, Jiaxing was part of the Wu Kingdom, so the Jiaxing folk embroidery that has been passed down from ancient times to the present day is also Su embroidery. Embroidery is a job that all women in Jiaxing must learn. Its finished products are divided into two categories: appreciation items and daily necessities. Daily necessities are the mainstream, with a wide range of applications, which can roughly include dresses, shoes and hats (such as embroidered shoes, handkerchiefs, jackets and skirts), bedding, tents and pillows, and small accessories, which are generally used for weddings, funerals and daily wear. The materials and tools for Tanghui shoe and hat embroidery are mainly silk, cloth, colored silk thread, expanded thread, embroidery needles, scissors, and paste. The production process is mainly as follows: (1) Drawing, drawing a pattern on white paper with a pencil, or copying a ready-made pattern with carbon paper; (2) Cutting, cutting silk or cloth into the required shape and size with scissors; (3) Cypress paper, mounting the cut silk or cloth and the interlayer with paste, and forming slightly hard cypress paper after drying; (4) Embroidery, fixing the drawn or copied pattern to the part to be embroidered, threading several embroidery needles with various colored silk threads, and carefully embroidering back and forth according to the pattern; (5) Sewing, sewing the embroidery pieces on shoes, hats and other items after completion. Common patterns in Tanghui embroidery are various flowers, such as lotus and evergreen; various animals, such as tiger-head hats, carp jumping over the dragon gate and other auspicious patterns; and various characters, such as drama characters and "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea". Since the 1960s, with the development of economy, mechanical embroidery has replaced hand embroidery in Jiaxing, and folk embroidery has gradually withdrawn from the daily life of ordinary people. Young women no longer learn embroidery. At present, there are still many middle-aged and elderly women who can embroider in Xiucai Village, Tanghui Street, Jiaxing Economic Development Zone. Most of them learned embroidery under the guidance of their mothers since childhood, and used hand-embroidered daily necessities as dowry when they got married. Although embroidery is no longer a compulsory course for women, there is still a certain demand in daily life. It is mainly used for shrouds and shoes for the elderly when they die, shoes and hats for children, and curtains for Buddha in temples. Zhang Meibao, a 70-year-old woman from the ninth group of Xiucai Village, Xinhejiayuan, Tanghui Street, has been engaged in embroidery for more than 40 years. She is proficient in various embroidery techniques and often helps other elderly people embroider some shrouds and hats. Tanghui embroidery has been included in the second batch of Jiaxing City's intangible cultural heritage list. Information source: Jiaxing Library (no pictures yet, welcome to provide.) Information source: Jiaxing Library (no pictures yet, welcome to provide.)