Durable threads

A woman has made it her life's mission to promote the rare embroidery of the Shui ethnic group in Southwest China, Yang Jun reports.

Horse tail embroidery of the Shui ethnic group is an intangible heritage in China, and 53-year-old Song Shuixian has made it her life's mission to take it to a wider audience.

For starters, her clothes reflect the craft - flowers blossom from the collar of her top; dragons dance around the edges of her sleeves and intricate patterns adorn her pants.

The embroidery needs both good texture and quality threads.

"It is an absolute treasure," says Song.

Like many young women from her community, she learned how to sew with threads made from a horse's tail from her mother when she was very young, and later honed her craft in the village of Bangao, the "hometown of horse tail embroidery" in Sandu county, Guizhou province, where she was taught by her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law.