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Craft village · Lụa và thêu tay · Silk & hand embroidery

Quất Động

Làng thêu Quất Động — the embroidery village of Thường Tín

Twenty-five kilometres south of Hà Nội, a few lanes from Hạ Thái, Quất Động is the village that taught the north to embroider. The frames stand in the windows; the best work is done in the morning, before the light goes hard, one stitch at a time.

Wide view of an embroidery room in Quất Động, a wooden frame set in the window, silk in morning light, spools on a table, hand embroidery village, Red River Delta, Vietnam
Wide view of an embroidery room in Quất Động, a wooden frame set in the window, silk in morning light, spools on a table, hand embroidery village, Red River Delta, Vietnam

“Before ten the light is flat and the needle tells the truth.”

Twenty-five kilometres south of Hà Nội, a few lanes from Hạ Thái, Quất Động is the village that taught the north to embroider. The frames stand in the windows; the best work is done in the morning, before the light goes hard, one stitch at a time.

Craft
Hand embroideryThêu tay
Where
Thường Tín, Hà Nội25 km from Hà Nội
Practised since
c. 17th centuryThe first embroidery village of the north
Material
Silk threadOn Vạn Phúc silk
On LangSoul
1 artisan3 works

01 — The story

A season of mornings, for four hundred years

Quất Động's patron learned embroidery in China on an embassy and brought it home. The village has not put the needle down since.

Archive black-and-white photograph from the mid-twentieth century, faded and grainy: the embroidery frame in Quất Động, hand embroidery, villagers in simple work clothes, old brick and timber

Quất Động's patron learned embroidery in China on an embassy and brought it home. The village has not put the needle down since.

The ancestor the village honours, Lê Công Hành, is said to have brought the craft back from a seventeenth-century mission to the Ming court. For three centuries Quất Động made for the altars and the aristocracy: banners, robes, the panels that hung in the great houses.

The trade spread through the district and then the country; much embroidery sold as Vietnamese is now done fast and far away. In Quất Động a few households still work the old way — on hand-loomed silk, with threads split finer than a hair, one panel taking a season of mornings. Those are the works we carry.

Fingertips splitting a single silk thread into finer strands, in a Quất Động embroidery room, a wooden frame set in the window, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre, soft morning light
An embroidery frame set in a window, morning light on silk, in a Quất Động embroidery room, a wooden frame set in the window, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre, soft morning light

02 — The technique

What makes Quất Động embroidery

The thread is finer than the eye expects, and the work slower than anyone believes until they have watched it.

I

Thread split by hand

A single strand of silk is split into four or six before it is threaded.

II

Morning light only

The fine work is done before ten, when the light is flat and the colours read truly.

III

Shading by stitch

Colour is blended by laying stitches of different shades side by side, not by dyeing the thread.

IV

On Vạn Phúc silk

The ground is hand-loomed silk from the next village; it takes the needle and holds the tension.

Words you will meet

Thêu

To embroider.

Thêu tay

Hand embroidery, as opposed to machine.

Chỉ tơ

Silk thread.

03 — The artisans of Quất Động

One workshop we return to

All artisans
Portrait of Lê Thị Hoa, embroiderer in her forties, seated at an embroidery frame by a window in Quất Động, morning light on silk thread, fifth generation of the family trade

Lê Thị Hoa

Embroiderer · Fifth generation
All artisans

04 — Works from Quất Động

Three works from the village

All silk & hand embroidery works
Lotus pond, hand-embroidered silk: A hand-embroidered silk panel of a lotus pond, shaded silk thread on hand-loomed Vạn Phúc silk, still stretched on its wooden frame, in a Quất Động embroidery room, a wooden frame set in the window, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre, soft morning light, by Lê Thị Hoa

Lotus pond, hand-embroidered silk

Lê Thị Hoa

$860
Cushion cover, embroidered cranes: A silk cushion cover hand-embroidered with two cranes in shaded thread on wine-red Vạn Phúc silk, still on the frame, in a Quất Động embroidery room, a wooden frame set in the window, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre, soft morning light, by Lê Thị Hoa

Cushion cover, embroidered cranes

Lê Thị Hoa

$320
Small embroidered panel, kingfisher: A hand-embroidered silk panel of a kingfisher over shaded water, silk thread on hand-loomed silk, stretched on its frame by a window, in a Quất Động embroidery room, a wooden frame set in the window, mulberry silk, deep wine red and ochre, soft morning light, by Lê Thị Hoa

Small embroidered panel, kingfisher

Lê Thị Hoa

$520
All silk & hand embroidery works

05 — Visiting

Come and watch a morning's stitching

We pair a visit to Quất Động with Hạ Thái, a few lanes away: an embroidery household in the morning, lacquer after lunch. Collectors who have acquired a work from the village visit as our guests.

From Hà Nội
About 50 minutes by car
Best season
October to April
Group size
Six people at most
Ask about a visit Ask about a visit

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