Dream of Red Mansions

 

 

I made it into the shopping center that had its grand opening last week. It's a myriad of shops with a variety of goods. Of course, my radar is always on the alert for cross stitch shops and this one truly captured my attention.

The cross stitch is a design inspired by the book, "Dream of Red Mansions." The following description of the book is taken directly from the cited website.

"A Dream of Red Mansions, written in the latter half of the 18th century, describes the life and declining fortunes of a large feudal family. At the heart of the novel is a tragic love story between Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. The author, instead of telling the love story superficially, tries to tap the social origins of the tragedy through probing deeply into the characters' minds and the complicated relationship among them, hence exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty of feudalism and the decadence of the ruling class. The novel goes far beyond the tragic love story, to depict a broad swath of society through describing a series of complicated conflicts and struggles, and ultimately predicting the domed fate of feudal society as a whole. The novel criticizes feudalism, its corrupted politics, marriage system and ethical relationships and passionately denounces its cruelty and inhumanity. In China, A Dream of Red Mansions is praised as an encyclopedia for analyzing feudal society." http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_41669.htm

The cross stitch is approximately 11 feet long and 3 feet tall. I *think* it is stitched on 11 count aida, but it's possible that it is 14 count. The lady in the picture said she stitched the project, but she couldn't tell me how long it took her. She "guessed" it was six to eight months. To be honest, I'm suspicious that she didn't stitch it, but framed it. I've met another woman who was working on this one. She was a shopkeeper as well and it took her eight months to do three women. However, I'll probably never know for sure.