"Shi is always working on some needlework, even when she talks with us. I've never known someone so crazy about embroidery."
Shi doesn't consider herself particularly social, but Wang believes she communicates well with clients and students.
"I think she just prefers embroidering to socializing."
Shi studied costume design in Shenyang Aerospace University's School of Design and Art from 2006 to 2010, the year she became a wedding-dress designer and moved to Beijing.
She also designed accessories and dresses for Spring Festival galas before opening her own studio.
"There was a time when the inside pages of Cosmobride magazine showed photos of many brides wearing dresses I'd designed. I'm not a confident person. I never knew I'd be good at something until I discovered embroidery," She says.
One of her specialties is embroidering moon-shaped fans, which have three millennia of history in China.
"I think the moon-shaped fan is like a carrier of Chinese culture. And it's a daily-use item. I combine embroidery skills from Suzhou, France and India, and present Chinese culture on the fan," Shi says.
For example, the red-crowned crane that Shi embroiders is three-dimensional. Its feathers are attached to the fan, and its wing can open as if on a hinge. This is a modern innovation that doesn't belong to any traditional style, she says.
"As long as it's beautiful, there should be no boundaries," she says.
Her workstation can simply be a fan, a needle and a box of sequins.
Each fan takes her around 10 days, from paper sketches to finding materials and matching colors.
"The key is to repeatedly revise the design," she says.
