Stitching a better future

But life had other plans. At 17, she was already known for her needlework and her school leadership — she was president of the student union. This ambition to be first in everything increasingly contradicted what she observed: many Yi ethnic women were confined to their homes, raising children and doing chores, with very few job opportunities.

To fight the acquiesced destiny her family had arranged for her — a wife and stay-at-home mother — she took on the hardest, dirtiest jobs. She cleaned streets and hauled waste. After 18 months, she had helped pay off the family debt, eventually earning her many career choices and her parents' approval.

That was when she decided to turn her innate passion for Yi embroidery into something for others.

When she began, Yi embroidery in Mabian was "unwanted, unsought, and unnoticed", in her words. Women stitched only for themselves, for their own weddings and festivals. The idea of selling their work was unheard of.

But Qiaojin promised those women that she would buy whatever they stitched together.