Here is a small and easy design to embroider for example a greeting card format (12 cm high) that you can achieve in just a few hours. The stitches used are all basic ones and to give a festive feeling to this work, exceptionally, I used a lot of shiny metallic threads from the collection of the Ver à Soie in Paris.

To allow light and fast embroidery, I used watercolor technique on each ball as we used last year for “Singing bird”.

The outline of this ball is embroidered with stem stitch and 2 threads. The motifs inside the ball are made in the following way,  with satin stitch for the rhombuses, with blanket stitch for the lower part, with a large lazy daisy stitch and with back stitch for the volutes.

To achieve this result, I used stranded cotton and Perle silk of 2 different shades of red and metallic thread n°8 gold and n°4 red.

This pattern is mainly realized with back stitch, with the exception of the small almonds that are embroidered with satin stitch 1 thread and the central star embroidered in straight stitch.

I used yellow Perle cotton n°8 as well as variegated yellow fine silk thread, n°8  metallic gold thread and n°4 metallic copper thread.

The outline of this ball is embroidered with stem stitch 2 threads and the remaining part with back stitch.

I used blue stranded cotton and metallic thread n°8 in 2 different shades of blue.

Chains are embroidered with chain stitch embellished with a back stitch between the stitches. The small stars are all embroidered with straight stitch.

I used stranded and Perle n°8 cotton corresponding to that used in the balls as well as metallic thread n°8 gold and n°4 copper.