Re-embroidering life

In the third room, Lan Xin clapped her hands happily: "The first wife is finally no longer the head of the family. Let her keep bullying the third room!"

Shui Qinghua was not so happy. All the shameful things her sister-in-law did were for the people around her, such as paying off her brother's gambling debts and fighting for a house for her son. She herself got nothing good and even provoked her husband's disgust. This husband should have never been on the same page with her. For a moment, she couldn't tell whether she hated her sister-in-law more or felt more pity for her.

Winter has arrived, and the weather is getting colder day by day. Shuixiufang is scheduled to open on the first day of the twelfth lunar month, just one month before the Chinese New Year. For this reason, in addition to the 100 pairs of embroidery that were previously ordered, Shui Qinghua also temporarily added a batch of festive New Year supplies. The embroiderers are all busy embroidering. Dou Daguanshi said that in addition to the fixed monthly salary, the embroiderers can get half a cent of profit for each embroidery order. The more they sell, the more they earn. In this way, no one has time to complain and find faults. They just want to embroider more and order more.

The shop provided by Chuxiu Pavilion is located on a street near the main street of Echeng. Although the location cannot be compared with Chuxiu Pavilion, the flow of people is not bad. The decoration style is somewhat similar to Chuxiu Pavilion, but the shop is specially built with Taihu stones to create a small bridge and flowing water interior, and the atmosphere of Jiangnan is blowing. Shui Qinghua admits that Ye Dongjia is really attentive.

The invitations were sent out one by one, to old customers of Siyifang and Chuxiuge, her brothers and sisters, the Chen family, the Dong family... She also wanted to invite Granny Zheng, but was stopped by Ye Jincheng. Ye Jincheng said that the day Granny Zheng gave her the embroidery pattern, their fate was broken, and they didn't need to meet in the future, as long as she could find a successor to pass on Jiang embroidery.

What strange rules of this sect.

While writing invitations in the study, Shui Qinghua thought, the water has already turned into ice, so it won’t be long before snow falls, right?

The first day of the twelfth lunar month. The day when the Shuixiu Workshop opens.

At dawn, the door of Shuixiufang slowly opened. Two big red lanterns were hung in front of the door, reflecting the three gilded characters of "Shuixiufang" shining brightly. Shui Qinghua looked at the plaque, her heart was in turmoil. It took her almost a year to go from a woman in the back house to owning her own embroidery workshop. Only she knew how much she had gone through in the process.

The guests have arrived in twos and threes.

When they walked into the embroidery workshop, the first thing that caught their eyes was rows of exquisite display racks. The embroidery works displayed on them were completely different from what they had seen before. The needlework was delicate and varied, like Suzhou embroidery, but upon closer inspection, it was not Suzhou embroidery. The colors were not as elegant as Suzhou embroidery, but colorful and lively.

The embroidery is divided into several different series. The animal series is vivid and adorable, and the little animals seem to jump out of the embroidery cloth at any time, attracting children to stop and watch, and exclaim in amazement. The flower series has flowers on branches and leaves on flowers, and the veins of the leaves are often decorated with gold thread, which is majestic and magnificent. The bamboo series embroiders the toughness and nobleness of bamboo, with bamboo leaves swaying in the wind and bamboo joints standing tall and strong, showing a transcendent artistic conception. The Chinese herbal medicine series uses the plant prototypes of herbs as the theme, such as ginseng, ganoderma lucidum, and angelica. The embroidery is fine and the shapes are lifelike, which is refreshing. The artifact series and folk series are all drawn from life, from music, chess, calligraphy and painting to festival customs, from daily necessities to traditional artifacts, each of which is full of rich cultural heritage and life atmosphere.

The embroidery products are also extremely rich, with round fans that are light and delicate, silk handkerchiefs that are soft and flowing, and sachets that are small and exquisite, each one of which is irresistible.

The most eye-catching thing is the treasure of the store, a hair-embroidered Buddha statue, which is displayed in a glass cover. Using the lost hair-embroidery technique, the Buddha statue has a kind face, deep eyes, and smooth and natural folds in the clothes. Under the sunlight, the luster of the hair and the luster of the silk thread complement each other, making it more solemn and majestic. Many customers couldn't help but put their hands together and chant to the Buddha statue.

"It is said that the embroidered statue of Medicine Buddha, which is a manifestation of the Buddha, was made by Shui Xiufang. I heard that it was worshipped by the Chen family?" a guest whispered.

Dou Jianzhi was dressed in new clothes today and looked very energetic. He answered all the questions from the guests. Hearing this question, he proudly said loudly: "The hair embroidery technique was re-invented by Shui Niangzi, the owner of Shui Xiufang, based on ancient books. The embroidery of Medicine Buddha was also completed by her and the women of Chen family."

The guests exclaimed in amazement one after another, saying it was truly a genius to have revived an ancient skill that had been lost.

Strike while the iron is hot. Since we are talking about hair embroidery, we have to promote the hair embroidery business. Dou Jianzhi walked to a corner of the store and pulled out a separate display stand, which displayed several hair embroidery products. There were baby footprints, handprints, and various styles of love knots.

The guests were really interested, and people flocked to the display stand. Hair embroidery is such a mysterious and advanced skill that people thought it could only be used to worship Buddha, but they didn't expect that they could also enjoy hair embroidery products at a very reasonable price. This strong contrast accurately hit the hearts of the guests, and for a time, the number of orders for hair embroidery far exceeded that of other embroidery products.

The eight shop assistants were recruited from Si Yi Fang and Chu Xiu Ge. They were all handsome young men wearing exquisitely embroidered blue shirts. Even though they were well-trained, they were still overwhelmed by the rising demand. They introduced and recommended products while writing orders by hand, talking until their mouths were dry and they were busy all the time.

Shopkeeper Wang and Mr. Ye accompanied their respective big clients to sit in the private room on the second floor. They also had a mission, which was to recommend Furong Garden embroidery. As a high-end embroidery, Furong Garden embroidery was not exhibited in the lobby. Most of these well-known clients had participated in Ji Zimo's calligraphy and painting auctions and had seen "Wang" being sold at a high price of 500 taels. When they heard that it was the author of "Wang", they were immediately attracted.

At the end of the day, when it was time to close the shop, Dou Jianzhi counted the beads on his abacus and saw that he had received orders for more than 40 pieces of hair embroidery, more than 100 pieces of various embroidery, and three pieces of Furong Garden embroidery. According to the speed of embroidery, the orders would be placed at least three months later, and he had received more than 1,000 taels of silver in deposit alone.

On the first day of opening, this result can be said to be quite satisfactory, and the shop assistants and embroiderers all cheered.

Shui Qinghua was also very happy. Judging from the customers' reactions, water embroidery was competitive in the market, which was a great encouragement to her. But her mind was no longer limited to the present, but flew to three months later.

She was thinking that if she wanted to sell her embroidery products outside of Echeng and to Chu and Jiangnan, she needed to recruit and train more embroiderers. She couldn't always rely on the few girls now to produce embroidery pictures. She needed to organize a group of painters who could provide a stable output. Three months later, it would be spring, the time for young men and women to go outings. What kind of patterns would they want on their clothes?

She was deeply immersed in her own thoughts when she suddenly heard someone shout, "It's snowing, it's snowing!"

She woke up suddenly and walked out quickly. Snowflakes as big as goose feathers fell one by one. She caught them with her palms. They were cold. The first snow of this winter fell on the first day of the Shuixiu Workshop's opening. It was a good omen.

A horse-drawn carriage rumbled towards the Water Embroidery Workshop, and a familiar figure was looming in the carriage.

Tears quietly invaded her eyes. He finally kept his promise.