Deck the halls - The nineteenth door

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la 𝄞 ♫𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅯
It's one of the carols I love, but I had never looked up its history.
Obviously its origin is a Welsh winter carol with the name "Nos Galan". Its melody is dating back to the sixteenth century, but the English lyrics were written by Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant not before 1862! If you are interested in more detail, check it out here for example, The Hymns and Carols of Christmas.
Those first lyrics still had a lot of drinking in them which got lost in later versions. I wonder why, there's nothing wrong with a little drink on Christmas, is there?

What is a bough of holly, though?
The holly is a shrub-like evergreen which can grow up to the size of tree. Holly leaves grow from rigid limbs which, when cut, are called bough of holly.

There are different tutorials for holly jewelry or plants on YouTube, but I didn't want stylized leaves from a few beads. No, I planned to bead some leaves in brick stitch and started with making a pattern for the bigger leaf.

My holly is of a transparent emerald green, a beautiful color with AB finish. I decided against adding the fine yellow veins that you see in some of the leaves, but I added yellow beads for the spikes.
And then, because that's the way my brain works, I sewed on the center vein after all. That looked wrong without some of the side veins, so I added a few of those.
The next day, I had another good look and cut all the veins off again. There is some useless thread hidden away in that leaf - and some wasted time, but it was still the right decision.
nb cvx        ws - I have no idea what that means, but it's the opinion des Dekans on the matter. Any of you speak Cat?

I had to take a break before being able to tackle the second leaf (that was also the point when I abandoned the idea of three leaves) because my thumb arthritis started acting up. In the meanwhile, the search for the perfect red beads began. I wanted them to be shiny, not too dark, not transparent, not faceted of course, the right size, and I didn't want a whole strand only to use just a few beads.
So I looked at wax pearls, glass pearls, stone beads, glass beads, acrylic beads, and finally was lucky to find so-called miracle beads. The description say they are plastic covered in resin which makes them lightweight and durable. I hadn't seen them before.

Waiting for the beads to arrive, I started on the pattern for the second leaf, smaller to make it more natural. My 10th class art teacher would like that, but hate the fact that I made both leaves symmetrical just to make the counting easier. "Nature isn't symmetrical! Put more crooked branches there." This was my 19th project with some of the bigger ones still ahead of me, my motivation was wavering. Had it been the first, I'm almost sure I would have gone for asymmetrical leaves.
The second leaf ended up being a bit smaller than I had planned and for a few moments I contemplated making a third one after all. Then I thought of the projects waiting. So instead of making another leaf - and I actually had opened the pattern again already - I sewed up the ends of the leaves and hoped for a quick arrival of the beads.
They were in my mailbox the next day and I was really happy when I opened the envelope, color and shine were perfect.

My first attempt at sewing them on, however, was pathetic. I don't like if I see too much thread on the sides, and with the beads being 10 mm, there was too much thread for my liking which I couldn't cover up.
Rip, rip, rip - can you imagine how desperate I was by now to get this ornament done? The second time around I didn't sew the berries on side to side, but did it like in a fringe, went through the bead, added a seed bead supposed to imitate the bottom of a holly berry and went back through the berry bead and into the leaf again pretty much in the same spot I had come out of. Much better! I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Last but not least, I bent both leaves to make them look a little more natural and stiffened them in the back.

Do you see now why I like the berries? The description also said that in light it looks as if you can look inside the beads although they are not transparent. It's quite fascinating. Unfortunately I didn't manage to capture the effect well in the picture as the Christmassy shine was even stronger, so you will just have to believe me it's there.

There you go. Despite all problems I am now ready to deck the halls - with one tiny bough of holly ;-)

Wanna have a little extra?
How about Annie Lennox singing "The Holly and the Ivy?" So beautiful!