Chapter 355 - The Artist Learns the Craft of Embroidery

Learning embroidery, as Yujia discovered, was different from simply sewing. It was around the same concept, weaving needles back and forth through cloth, but for Yujia at least, embroidery was more difficult.

She went, once again, to Lili to learn how to embroider. After Lili pulled out a few of her works for embroidery, Yujia knew she could trust Lili's skill. If Lili was knowledgeable in sewing, she was countless times more knowledgeable in embroidery. As Yujia was told, Lili's favorite pastime was to embroider various handkerchiefs and other clothes, many of which she would give to others, while the rest of them she kept in a c.h.e.s.t.

Under Lili's teachings once again, Yujia learned that embroidery had countless styles. She already heard of some of these styles when she was out in the marketplace, browsing the various goods, ever since she transmigrated. But as Lili explained them, Yujia realized that they were more than just a fancy name for a style. Each style of embroidery contained a vast wave of history behind it. They had their own requirements for supplies— such as Su embroidery, the most prominent style, requiring specific needle thickness. Furthermore, each style favored different patterns, symmetry, and color.

Lili's displayed work was simply stunning. Yujia never knew the young woman in front of her had such talent before, with the clothes Lili most commonly wearing being sparse in embroidery. When Yujia witnessed Lili's embroidery for the first time, she was simply blown away. 

Immaculate details, refined colors, and beautiful compositions, Lili's embroidery were so stunning that Yujia could compare them to paintings of the highest caliber. Each one of her separately embroidered pieces were exquisite. With the ability to embroidery scenery like such, Yujia thought about the comparison between paintings and embroidery. Even if embroidery wasn't considered the same form of art as painting, having skills like this should've qualified Lili for something, shouldn't it?

Yujia truly didn't think Lili's embroidery was any lesser than the paintings of the disciples of Lingxin. Even her own paintings seemed to pale in comparison. Lili's raw talent and work was just undeniable.

And, as far as Yujia knew, she definitely wasn't going to get to that level in a few day's time.

However, Lili wasn't one to give Yujia the title of a lost cause. Once Yujia explained her lack of experience to Lili, they came up with a plan to get Yujia to a professional level of embroidery in just three day's time. Lili figured if Yujia practiced embroidering the same picture over and over again for three days straight, her end product would turn out decent. Yujia thought about it and certainly there was some logic behind it. It was the same idea as painting the same thing for days after days.

Because they decided on this plan, it was also time for Yujia to decide what she was going to embroider. A crucial aspect was to pick one element to practice and to keep practicing the same image.

The two talked about many kinds of symbols and their various meanings. A pair of butterflies or birds symbolized two hearts beating as one, peonies symbolized prosperity, lotuses symbolized purity, chrysanthemums symbolized longevity… Yujia thought about countless symbols. 

She considered butterflies, but then she thought about it some more. In the end, she settled on bamboo.

Bamboo, amongst many other meanings, stood for safety. A pair of butterflies would be lovely and romantic, but above all, what she wanted for Zixu was safety. That was what was most important, after all.

Now that they had a symbol in mind, Lili sketched out the design of bamboo on a white piece of silk cloth she usually used for handkerchiefs. While sketching, she used a pencil, to Yujia's delight. 

"Ever since you started selling these," Lili said with a cheerful note, "I've been using them to help me plan out some of my embroidery."

"I never thought about pencils being used that way, but that's truthfully amazing," Yujia replied.

"It's really been helpful," Lili hummed while finishing the pattern.

She then pulled out her set of needles— the two were working in Lili's room, as Yujia went over to where Lili lived to seek for help instead of forcing Lili to come to her courtyard— picking a needle that looked much more delicate than what Yujia used to stitch. As Yujia watched, Lili slipped a light green thread through the needle, demonstrated the kind of knot to tie, then began to stitch.

She began the creation of a bamboo leaf about the length of Yujia's pointer finger by poking the needle near the top of the leaf, then working her way with small stitches to the top. Each stitch was incredibly miniscule, until she began to work her way down the leaf. As the width of the leaf increased, each stitch also grew in diagonal length. Through this method of embroidery, half of the leaf was being formed through uniform lines. Because of how detailed the work was, and how close each stitch was with each other, the texture was perfectly smooth. It even resembled the veins and texture of an actual bamboo leaf, in a way.

After finishing the stitches for one side of the leaf, she ran through the side again with another layer of stitches, thus increasing the height of the embroidery. This also helped the leaf take on a more three-dimensional, lifelike appearance. 

When she had that accomplished, she mirrored the same movements on the opposite side of the leaf. This time, she picked a darker spool of green thread, which implied the presence of shadows and light. Embroidery-wise, it was the same concept, but now that Yujia could watch her twice, Yujia learned more. While Lili embroidered, she made sure that she worked slowly, explaining every little movement and ensuring that Yujia comprehended all of it. 

To complete the leaf overall, within a thin white space that had appeared between the two finished sides, Lili embroidered a long vertical line down the center. As Yujia observed, even a line like this was composed of numerous small vertical stitches. A few of them overlapped each other to once again give the three-dimensional effect. This was done with an even darker color of green thread. 

The last string was snipped, and the embroidery of one leaf was complete.

The entire process was like magic to Yujia. It took so much effort and time to stitch just one leaf of a simple bamboo pattern. She never imagined that the embroidery work she wore, the ones with so many intricate details, could've been the result of this much effort. It really cast new light on the whole craft to her. 

But now, since Lili completed one leaf, it was time for Yujia to give it a try.

Picking up the needle and thread, Yujia began stitching.

Her movements were not clumsy, but they were certainly slow. She was careful, more careful than she had been when sewing the cloak. Even though it was just her first time trying, she didn't want to mess up. 

Though Yujia spent much more time than Lili in stitching the next leaf, hers didn't turn out as perfect. She could spot the flaws herself: areas where the threads turned out uneven, spaces she didn't fill in properly, jagged remnants of stitches on the back side of the cloth where she didn't bother making neat enough.

Well, she figured it was good news that in the particular pattern Lili drew for her to follow, there were plenty of leaves to practice with. 

Her motivation turned out to be accurate. Leaf after leaf, the more Yujia sewed, the better they turned out. At first, embroidering just one leaf took more than an hour for her, yet the time also slowly decreased while the quality of each leaf went up.

By the end of the day, she thought that the last leaf she worked on looked pretty much the same as the original that Lili created as an example.

Lili, who popped back into the room after finishing her tasks in the kitchen, also gave her approval. Then, she gave news that Yujia wasn't expecting.

"Since you have mastered the basic leaf, let's move onto something more complicated."

Yujia's lips parted a bit in surprise. "More complicated?" She thought what she was doing was already fairly complex.

"Of course. The one you worked on today is but a basic stitch. The more complex the stitch is, the better it'll turn out. You're not interested?" 

Upon hearing that she could make it look better, Yujia gave a solemn nod. "Alright then. I want to give the more complicated one a try."

The next day, Lili introduced the more complex embroidery to her. 

Essentially, instead of the one Yujia worked on with one color of thread for each side of the leaf, this new form of stitching involved a variety of techniques to embroider numerous colors of thread together to form a cohesive gradient. Each leaf would go from dark green at its base to a shimmering light green at the top, in a manner of blending so smooth that it could be like blending ink on paper. 

This was certainly much harder for Yujia. She spent the rest of the day trying to learn how to make it look good, finding with disappointment that by the end of that day, her end product still didn't look quite as good as Lili's. However, Lili still assured her with absolute confidence that Yujia's progress was extraordinary. The gradient blend was something Lili spent months mastering, and to get to the point where Yujia was at in a day's time was sheer proof of genius.

Yujia only nervously scratched the back of her neck, taking credit for all the practice the Fourth Miss's body had with embroidery.

…

On the third day, that was when Yujia switched from working with white silk and green threads to the dark blue silk satin and silver threads for the official cloak.

With a few scrap pieces of dark blue fabric, she familiarized herself with the different thickness of the cloth. She also familiarized herself with embroidering with silver threads. Although amongst the threads that she bought from the clothing store included a variety of shades of silver, it was still different to work with them than the green threads she had been familiar with. 

Another differing part was that she didn't have any traced pattern to follow. A pencil would not show up well on cloth as dark as the blue satin, so Yujia had to rely on a reference in her mind for the shape. At the start, on her beginning try with scrap fabric, the shape of the bamboo and leaves turned out a bit crooked. 

At this point, the mindset of practice was drilled into Yujia. She continued to embroider, piece after piece, in her courtyard. And with the progress she witnessed, she was not disappointed with herself.

She stood up, picking up the cloak from the shelf it sat on. Preparing the straps that she would embroider on by setting them in a wooden frame, she then lifted a needle and threaded it with dark silver thread. She took a deep breath. She began her first stitch.

Her mind didn't need to think much, in unison with her fingers. Stitch after stitch after stitch, the process repeated. Switching from the dimming natural sunlight to candlelight, the process repeated. It went on and on until Yujia looked up, realizing she finished.

She finished her embroidery on Zixu's cloak.

Though it was a pattern she had seen countless times, though it was what she had been working on for the past few hours, she felt like she was seeing it for the first time.

On both cloak straps, the same piece of embroidered bamboo rested, the only difference being that one was flipped. She had embroidered a piece of bamboo that went up from the bottom of the strap to about midway. As it curled, its leaves grew from branches emerging from its stem. Each leaf contained an exquisite assembly of stitches, a smooth blend from dark to light. Furthermore, as the leaves stretched higher and higher, they grew lighter and lighter in color, like light shining down from the top, until the very tips went from light silver to shining white. 

The bamboo embroidery was subtle, yet at the same time, it complimented the cloak. With the white fox fur lining the neck, the lighter color embroidery served as a complimentary highlight, appearing neither too eye-catching nor too flashy. Even when turned over to the opposite side, the back side of the embroidery did not look horrible either, rather being quite clean and a reflection of the pattern on the front, one of the results of Yujia's lengthy practice.

With her work being so careful, Yujia thought the embroidery did not look any worse than what was sold in stores. And if it was, well, she supposed the straps could be removed and resewn with a few snips here and there.

Regardless, she was proud of her finished work. Knowing that her gift was complete, after the past week of learning and work, she could not express just how accomplished she felt.