Patterned fabrics and looms in the museum’s silk-craft exhibition.
A Thread Learns a Pattern
A loom, a cocoon and a patterned surface give China National Silk Museum a story that reaches well beyond Hangzhou.
A cultural thread
Silk & textiles.
Cocoons, crossing threads and patterned cloth: follow the materials and handwork that connect places.
Threads, structures and patterns
A silkworm's cocoon becomes a filament; crossing threads become cloth; dye or stitches give a surface another kind of pattern. These stories follow materials and the people who work them. Begin with silk and looms at Hangzhou's China National Silk Museum, then compare Wuzhen's blue-print cloth. Its cotton and resist-dyeing belong to a different material process. The connection is the work of making a pattern, with each place keeping its own technique and history.
Blue-print cloth drying in Wuzhen's dyeing courtyard.
A Cloth Learns to Be Blue
At Wuzhen’s indigo workshop, a pattern takes shape by keeping parts of the cloth away from the dye.
Connected places
One thread, many places.