Taiping silk ball

Liu Yunfang works on a silk ball

Taiping silk ball has distinctive local features with its long history and colorful patterns

Taiping silk ball is stitched together with 12 cloth petals

Liu Yunfang, living in Xiangfen county of Linfen city in Shanxi province, learned the art of making xiuqiu (a ball made of strips of silk) from her mother-in-law for more than 10 years.

Then she trained women in her village the skill to further develop the handicraft. The technique of making silk ball has been listed as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage and she is an inheritor. Now the silk ball has become a local cultural brand, generating an annual output value of nearly 1 million yuan ($141,494.8).

Taiping silk ball, once popular in ancient Taiping county in southern Shanxi province, and now Xiangfen county of Linfen city, is a traditional auspicious ornament.