Stitching Gail's Mittens (by proxy)

I've been watching Margaret Travis stitching on the custom mitten ornaments that Gail Hendrix did for her children this year, and had to go look at more of them in Gail's e-bay store. I found several delightful ones - but this one with "CoCo" on it caught my eye - both because it is really pretty, and because my daughter has a cat by that name. (Chanel is her idol) Anyway, just studying it on the screen, I can plan what I would do if I were stitching it.

These things of Gail's are too pretty in color and pattern and too well painted to be suffocated with a lot of textured stitches and too many different kinds of sparkle. I prefer the look of a rather plain background - basketweave - in either silk or the wonderful Very Velvet (by Rainbow Gallery), and then some great decorative stitches on appropriate design elements, plus a good scattering of beads.

I am not good at drawing lines on the "Paint" program, which is where I did this - but they will do for this, although quite squiggly. At the very top, I drew inked squares where I would put Smyrna cross "bump" stitches - probably with something like Renaissance Shimmer, as it is a sparkling thread, but not "overkill" on the sparkle as some threads are. This can be repeated at the bottom, as there are more little squares in the same color, but separated by one background thread. At the bottom also are some white dots, where I would put beads.

Back to the top: The lines pointing to the turquoise shapes indicate where more beads could be placed, wherever the "dips" of the warp threads are. Also a bead would do in the center of the little red/orange crosses. Moving down, the 3 x 3 stitch squares could be "bump" stitches, and the line under them worked in the same thread, but placing a bead on every other stitch on the warp "dip." The purple motif also would be lovely with a bead in the center of each one, and on the name, beads can be used wherever there is a warp dip, stitching the rest in thread.

If you study a small project like this, you can see many many interesting things that can be done to enhance it just a little bit without ruining the basic effect. I had to also show "Gucci" just because it's a great name - I need a new cat to name Guggi. Personally, I like Givenchy perfumes, but don't think I can see myself out in the yard at sundown yelling such a name to call the pet in for the night. It probably wouldn't answer anyway. I failed to mention that Gail told me CoCo was a Pug dog - I have no idea who Gucci was. In Austin people keep pigs, goats, and snakes for pets. Hmmmm.