Yang Li, a female embroider of Miao ethnic group in Southwest China's Guizhou province, creatively stitches beautiful natural scenes on dried leaves, and has successfully sold her pieces in Europe and the Americas.
Yang completed her first embroidery on a leaf in 2011. She chose medium-sized leaves of wild plants on Fanjing Mountain, a famous scenic spot in Tongren city, and dried them to keep the vein pattern.
Going through 26 time-consuming processes, the leaves become special "canvases" for embroidery. Beautiful scenery and creatures can be embroidered and permanently preserved in the leaf veins.
Her ingenious works drew a lot of attention at Tongren and many people wanted to buy them. As business expanded, Yang hired some 10 Miao seamstresses to learn her skills.
To date, Yang's team have made about 300 pieces, each worth thousands of yuan. Meanwhile, Yang has also established six other production bases to promote traditional Miao embroidery, batik and ethnic clothes, creating more than 400 jobs for rural women.