Su embroidery is one of the four famous Chinese embroideries, and is mainly produced in Suzhou City of Jiangsu Province in east China. Su is the shortened form of Suzhou, a city of with moderate climate, which has a prosperous industry of sericiculture and hence highly-developed technics of embroidery.

Su embroidery has a history of about 2,000 years, originating in the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280). According to historical records, Su embroidery became so popular during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that people even named lanes with names associated with silk and its embroidery. Nearly every family raised silkworms and embroidered. Su embroidery reached its peak during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and Suzhou was named the Embroidery City at that time.

Su embroidery is known for its delicacy and elegance. It has a wide range of themes. Its techniques include both single faced embroidery and unique double-faced embroidery that looks the same from either side. Double-sided embroidery has the same pattern on both sides and uses the same embroidering method that does not show the joins in the stitches. Basic features of Su embroidery are simple composition, clear theme, vivid image, and gentle color. In recent times, Su embroidery design has absorbed some western painting techniques.

The design is usually very simple, high lighting a main theme. Its stitching is smooth, dense, thin, neat, even, delicate and harmonious, etc. The thin thread is divided into up to 48 strands that are barely visible to the naked eye. In terms of categories, Su embroidery has stage costumes, embroidery fabrics and hanging screens, etc. Su embroidery products were sent to participate in the Panama World Fair in 1915. Since then, the style has become increasingly famous throughout the world.

In the long history of its development, Su Embroidery has gradually acquired its unique art style of pretty design, harmonious color, sprightly lines, lively needlework and fine workmanship. The embroidery skill is featured with flatness, tidiness, harmony, colorfulness, smoothness and evenness. "Flatness" refers to the flat surface of the embroidery; "tidiness" refers to the neat edge of the patterns; "thinness" refers to the fine thread which can be split into its one tenth, one twentieth and even one thirtieth; "thickness" refers to the close arrangement of the lines, leaving no sign of the stitches; "harmony", means the coordination of colors; and "colorfullness" represents the splendid colors. There are over one thousand varieties of thread colors, and each color is further classified into more than ten types from lightness to darkness. Sometimes a product will use as many as one or two hundred colors. "Smoothness" shows that the trace of the threads moves freely and smoothly, while "evenness" means that the lines are fairly consistent, whether loose or dense.

Su Embroidery was listed among the first batch of national intangible cultural heritages in 2006. Su Embroidery artists have been making unremitting efforts to carry forward, protect and develop Su Embroidery, inputting modern elements into it by incorporating new techniques. With the ability to recreate pictures of all genres and styles in the western and eastern paintings and photography, Su Embroidery is now endowed with more fashion and modernity.