## Threads Come and Go, Curves Exhaust Their Wonder Traditional patterns have run throughout the lives of people across history. These decorative artistic symbols have undergone thousands of years of development and evolution in China, forming certain fixed paradigms that have been widely applied to daily items such as clothing, furniture, ceramics, and jade objects, becoming an important component of the customs and habits of the Chinese nation. As a folk handicraft, Yixing pottery and its patterns and techniques have long been influenced by traditional decorative elements. The traditional patterns that Gu Jingzhou used in his works mainly include the key-fret pattern, cloud pattern, and ruyi pattern. The key-fret pattern (*huiwen*) gets its name from its shape resembling the character "回" (*hui*) with its horizontal tight folds and winding turns. The character "回" is explained in *Shuowen Jiezi* as: "to turn. From 口 (*kou*), the center symbolizes the form of turning back." This means "to revolve" or "to return." The origin of the key-fret pattern can be traced back to the Neolithic period, appearing on pottery excavated from Majiayao culture Machang-type sites dating back more than four thousand years. The style of the key-fret pattern is simple and refined. During the Shang dynasty, it was used on a large scale as a primary decorative pattern on bronze vessels, giving bronze ritual vessels a more solemn and weighty feeling. During the Zhou dynasty and the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, people continued to use and develop the decorative style of the key-fret pattern, forming meandering and