This decorative textile ball is covered with a traditional Hmong textile. We have 2 variations of it. One features genuine, vintage hand woven, hand dyed, hand embroidered and hand appliqueed cloth. The cloth itself is handspun, handwoven linen ("hemp"). The background is dyed using a traditional batik indigo technique. The relief designs are embroidered after small appliqueed squares are added. This is a fine example of an artistic style which is disappearing. Because of the value and rarity of this cloth, when there are small pieces which are too small to incorporate into any other, larger use Hmong women make these balls, which are smaller. The other, larger, variation is a modern, printed Hmong cloth, made to imitate the traditional cloth as described above. The modern cloth version is larger and somewhat more uniform in shape. Even though they are not all identical, they are much more similar to one another than the smaller ones which feature the vintage cloth.