Qiuhua went to the team and told her father about it, then excitedly went to Zhao Meiying's house to learn embroidery.
The old lady was washing radishes in the yard. She was delighted to see Meiying and Qiuhua coming over. She picked up two washed round radishes, wiped them on her clothes, and handed them to them. Meiying snatched them up, squatted by the well, washed them again, and gave one to Qiuhua. Still smiling, the old lady invited them into the house.
"Good mother-in-law, Qiuhua needs your help in embroidering. She wants to embroider mandarin ducks."
Zhao Meiying felt a little hot as she walked, so she picked up a large palm-leaf fan and fanned herself while eating a radish.
"Little girl, you are very hardworking. Okay, okay, I will teach you."
"Oh my! You're fanning yourself in this weather! You'll catch a cold!"
The little old lady felt sorry for her granddaughter and was anxious to take away her fan. Zhao Meiying giggled mischievously and nimbly dodged the hand extended by her grandma. The old lady was slow, so how could she snatch the fan from the little lady?
The grandmother and granddaughter were having a great time, and the old lady couldn't get any more, so she slapped her granddaughter on the butt with a smile. Zhao Meiying pretended to cry out in pain, and the way she limped while touching her butt was particularly funny. Qiuhua stood beside them, holding the embroidery and laughing.
After a while, Zhao Meiying went to the inner room to get the embroidery frame. Qiuhua deftly held up the embroidery frame, pulled out a chair for Haopo to sit down, and sat next to her.
Haopo is old and can't see clearly. Her wrinkled forehead is twisted tightly, her eyes are narrowed into a line, her head is far away from the embroidery frame, and one hand is slowly groping for the pattern on the embroidery. Qiuhua is very curious. The pattern is not protruding, so what can she touch?
Good Po watched and fretted from a distance, then studied the pattern paper for a long time before saying to Qiu Hua with a smile:
"My dear little girl, your fish embroidery is quite good, but you still need to learn more."
"Good mother-in-law, please teach me. I want to do embroidery in the future!"
Hearing Qiuhua say this, Haopo frowned and said, "What are you doing? Embroidery? It's hard and tiring. You have to sit there all day long. As soon as you sit down in the morning, it's dark in the blink of an eye. It's so hard to sew every stitch. How can young people still do this!"
"My eyes are blind, my neck is sore, my waist is weak, there's no place on my body that's good anymore! I don't want to do embroidery anymore!"
"I thought you were just learning it and wanted to do it. Are you going to specialize in this in the future? I need to advise you!"
Qiuhua listened to her mother-in-law patiently, but Zhao Meiying next to her became impatient.
"Oh, dear mother-in-law, why do you just pour cold water on Qiuhua? Does she need your approval before doing anything? Or she likes embroidery, so why don't you teach her?"
"Why didn't you learn when I asked you to? Wasn't it because you felt tired and exhausted? Now Qiuhua wants to learn and you let me teach her. Aren't I tired anymore?"
Although the old lady's eyesight was poor, she spoke clearly and coherently. Qiuhua smiled and pulled Zhao Meiying's arm, signaling her not to speak to her mother-in-law in such a way.
"Good mother-in-law, I know embroidery is tiring, but I am not afraid of hardship or fatigue. You also know that my family is poor and I have been brought up in hardship since I was a child. This is not a lot of hardship."
"Besides, the most important thing is that I love embroidery. I can sit in front of the embroidery frame all day without feeling tired. Even a full day of embroidery is not enough."
"I like embroidery so I want to learn it. You embroider beautifully. If Meiying doesn't learn, I will. I can't let your craft be lost!"
The good mother-in-law was quite moved by listening to these words. Yes, a little girl from a farming family is not afraid of hardship. Qiuhua was raised by her, and she knew that this little girl could endure hardships. At such a young age, she could do the laundry, cook, and clean the house. Everyone said that she had given birth to a good daughter!
If she really likes it, she will not be able to endure the hardship. If she is willing to learn, the old lady will be more willing to teach her!
Qiuhua threaded two threads for Haopo. She looked with strained eyes, groped with one hand, and slowly threaded the needle through the embroidery surface with the other hand. Qiuhua watched carefully, afraid of missing a stitch.
"For the neck, you need to use a random stitch to make it look realistic. Many people embroider mandarin ducks but can't get the hair on the neck right, or they just use a flat stitch, which doesn't look realistic."
Haopo used a random stitch technique, using threads of varying lengths and densities. Layers of thread are stacked and complement each other, creating a sense of order within the chaos. The lines naturally intertwine to form a single surface. This technique makes the image more vivid, and the tuft of hair on the mandarin duck's neck appears playful and beautiful.
Qiuhua's face was full of surprise. She was so excited. The embroidery skills seemed to be really profound!
"My dear mother-in-law, you embroider so well, please teach me!"
"I'm not that good. My mother's family is from Tahe. I'm not very good at learning. I was beaten a lot when I was a child. My mother chased me and beat me with a stick as thick as a bowl!"
Zhao Meiying had heard this so many times that her ears were callused. Every time her mother-in-law asked her to learn embroidery, she refused, and her mother-in-law would then bring up this sad part of her past and keep nagging her about it.
Qiuhua knew Tahe Town. She had heard that everyone in that town could embroider, and their embroidery was particularly beautiful. The cats on the embroidery looked like they were alive, and they were also able to make both sides look equally beautiful, unlike her own embroidery, which had tangled threads on the back.
"My dear mother-in-law, your embroidery is so good! It's better than anyone else's I've seen!"
Qiuhua's praise made the little old lady smile. She taught Qiuhua stitch by stitch, teaching her with all her heart. After a while, Qiuhua also learned free-stitch embroidery, but her needlework was still relatively immature and needed more practice.
"Oh my, little girl is really cut out for this. She learns so quickly!"
Haopo couldn't help but admire Qiuhua's talent, and at the same time believed that she could work hard.
Zhao Meiying watched with great interest and kept threading the needle for them. Soon, the two beautiful mandarin ducks were almost finished embroidering.
Qiuhua felt that only a short while had passed. When she looked up again, she found that it was getting slightly dark. Haopo got up and said she was going to cook. Qiuhua also hurriedly got up to dismantle the tent frame. She was going home.
"Don't go back. Stay at my house for dinner today. Finish the rest after dinner, and then sleep with me at night!"
Qiuhua felt a little embarrassed. It was too rude to have dinner with him and ask him to stay overnight.
Zhao Meiying really wanted her to stay, so she repeated what she had just said.
Just as she was hesitating, her father came in from outside. He came to take Qiuhua home.
"Uncle, let Qiuhua stay and finish the remaining work tonight. Then she can sleep with me tonight."
"Yeah, this kid learns really fast. I'll go over this with her tonight. There's only a little left. Let's finish it and go back tomorrow."
Genfa thought about it and agreed.
"Genfa, please stay and eat. I cooked a lot and we can't finish it. It's a good thing you're here, why don't you eat something together?"
"No, Auntie, I'm going home to cook for a few people."
After saying that, Genfa gave a few words of advice and hurried home.
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