As a folk craftwork in China, fabric art is mainly prevalent in northern regions of China including Shandong, Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi Province.
With cloth, silk, thin silk and satin as main raw materials, fabric art is themed with people's yearning for wonderful life in an exaggerated way. It has assimilated and absorbed workmanship used in various folk fine arts. Such skills are required for making fabric art products: cutting, sewing, embroidering, adhibiting, picking, drawing (pricking), piecing together, twining, stitching, folding and inlaying. The products are featured by diversified shapes, various styles, primitive tinge, legerity, practicality as well as novel and plain folk-custom traits.
Folk fabric art products in ancient China are of diversified types, ranging from costume, shoe, cap, bed curtain, satchel, backpack and pillow to toys, muffle, handkerchief and other small-sized ornaments. One of the important varieties of folk fabric art is costumes, mainly infant fineries. They are characterized by diversified shapes and various color match, with tiger-head shoes and tiger-head (lion-head) caps as the model product. Lion and tiger are regarded by common Chinese people as deity beasts which can bless them with good luck. Extensive application of these two animals in infant fineries also reflects the important role of lion and tiger culture in Chinese folk custom.
Fabric-art toy is also one of the commonly seen varieties of folk fabric art. It is usually made by handtailoring colored silk, thin silk, satin, flannel and handmade wax-painted cloth with colored thread, golden and silver thread, etc. Featuring extremely exquisite workmanship, fabric-art toys are of very high appreciative and collecting value.
