The heirloom Christmas tree is an exquisite silk miniature elaborately embroidered with a profusion of decorations, many of them based on those which Jenny Stephenson hangs on her large family Christmas tree each year. One of the joys of this project is that the complex effect is achieved in the main with the simplest of stitches - but they are worked with a luxuriant variety of silk and metallic threads, and embellished with a profusion of tiny beads and sequins. The book clearly lays out the sequence to be followed in the trees creation, with each decoration fully explained, step by step, and illustrated with diagrams and a colour photograph. The instructions are precise, but there is much scope for creating your own version through the use of a different colour scheme for the balls and bells, beads of different styles and the addition of special trinkets that you may have hoarded.