Splitting One Silk Thread into Forty-Eight

In Su embroidery, a single silk filament is split into as many as forty-eight strands. The finest are thinner than a human hair — invisible individually, luminous when layered by the tens of thousands.

A double-sided embroidery of a cat takes one artisan months: the eyes alone may use twenty shades of thread, changed every few stitches so the pupil seems to follow you.