Threading a path through time

However, Bian embroidery's development hit a low ebb in Kaifeng when the Song moved the capital from Kaifeng to Hangzhou, in today's Zhejiang province, in the 12th century.

The traditional art was, at that time, confined to a select few.

But recovery was at hand. Several generations of those few Bian embroiderers have today examined techniques from the Song Dynasty and come up with more than 30 embroidery methods of that time.

They have proved extremely vivid and meticulous in portraying human figures and excel in depicting landscapes of mountains and rivers.

With local government backing, several people established the Kaifeng Bian embroidery plant in 1956 to carry forward the traditional craftsmanship.

Born into a rural family in Kaifeng in 1935, Wang Suhua was exposed to the charm of embroidery as a child.

Many girls and young women were engaged in embroidery work in the village and she learned by watching them closely.

"I was especially intrigued by the embroidered patterns on the quilts made by my grandmother and mother for our neighbors' weddings when I was about 10," she recalls.

Seeing her enthusiasm, her mother gave her a pair of black cotton-padded shoes to play with and she surprised everyone, and herself, by embroidering a cotton rose on them.

It was almost like fate that she passed the test and became an embroiderer at the Kaifeng Bian embroidery plant in 1957.