How to differentiate Chinese silk embroidery from machine-made embroidery

What's the difference between hand embroidery and machine embroidery by looking at their pictures. The best way is to check its photo with high resolution. By checking the large photos of the embroideries, you can see the stitches of the embroidery clearly. Below are some tips that will help you to tell Chinese silk hand embroidery from machine embroidery.

1. Material. Chinese silk embroidery is made with silk threads on silk satin. Silk threads are very delicate. It is very difficult for a machine to use silk threads to make embroidery because silk threads can get broken very easily during embroidering. Machine embroideries normally use artificial fibers or artificial silk threads that are much stronger than natural silk threads.

2. Size of threads. Machine embroideries use full threads, but a fine quality silk embroidery painting use split silk threads, silk threads split from one full silk strand. To show the embroidery effect well, embroidery artists often use different sizes of silk threads when making one silk embroidery work. For example, the face part of a portrait embroidery is the most exquisite part that often use silk threads much thinner than the ones in other parts. Embroidery done with thinner silk threads is more smooth and has more colors mixed so it will look more realistic. But in a machine-made embroidery, all the threads are in the same size, all threads not split.

3. Stitches. If you compare two machine embroideries of the same design, you will find their stitches are the same. But handmade silk embroidery is different from each other even if the design is the same. Due to their nature of being handmade, there are not two handmade silk embroideries that are 100% the same. Also in one machine made embroidery alone, if you check it carefully, you will find that its stitches have a regular pattern.

4. Colors. The hand embroidery looks more brilliant while the machine embroidery looks a bit dull. Also when you check the enlarged photos, you will find hand embroidery looks neater while the machine embroidery looks rough.

Below are two photos taken from one part of the embroideries, one is hand embroidered, the other machine made.