Baby hat from China

I looked at the shoes again last night, and I think they are fake. I don't think they've ever been worn. The embroidery design (a bird with wings outstretched) is beautiful, but there are a couple of places where the design that was drawn on to the base fabric was not covered with embroidery.

This piece, however, I feel is real. It is a baby hat made by someone of the Miao people group of China. That is an ethnic group that lives right in the center of the country, one of the areas most affected by the earthquake several months ago. This is a picture of the crown. The white that you can see is a cord that has been couched down in the intricate designs. Inside the cord design there is embroidery. It's not a satin stitch, but it looks like it might be a stem or Romanian type of stitch. The loose thread you can see on the right is raveled; I think it was probably a tie to keep the hat on the baby's head.



This is a picture of the front. The pink fabric is quilted and very warm. It looks quite new. The embroidery is in slips that look a lot older, as if they had been re-used in different hats over time. They are edged with blanket stitch.



I got this piece from eBay.