I get a little carried away sometimes.

Birthday Party Weekends are a little nuts (I have a genius for understatement). So, imagine combining a BPW with a Clare Coming Home Weekend. Then add a surprise visit from my sister-in-law from Ohio. Once all the factors are added together the answer is: Not a lot of knitting.

There was. however, needle felting. Because this is what came in the mail Saturday morning, unpacked after I loaded the dishwasher for the first time.













I do not want to hear anything about the mind that would think adding a project at such a time was a good idea. I am not compulsive. Nope. Not me.

Clare, wonderful woman, wanted to make the birthday cake. So I practiced.










I made the grocery/party supplies list, cycled out the first round of dishes, loaded the detritus from cake-making and food preparation, and needle-felted the first mitt. The green is too dark. Sigh. No time to change it. 12-year-old boys are scheduled to arrive within the hour.













I delegate making up party bags and decorating to the Birthday Boy. The others in this family put away the groceries. I do a spit and a polish on the bathrooms, run the vacuum over the rugs, and make myself presentable for company. Just about when the boys are due, but an hour before family is supposed to start arriving, I finish the second mitt. It was Clare's idea to combine the lime and forest greens into one spiral.













Somewhere, sometime, in all of that, I make a blueberry pie. It may be John's party, but it is the husband-and-father-of-the-house's birthday. This provides the perfect opportunity to test the mitts. They work. I have unburned hands to prove it.

I had that gratifying experience when someone, in this case one of my husband's sisters, says "You made that!?"

My sister's response was "Do you have the pattern?" I see Christmas plans in the gleam of her eye.

How-to's, wherefores, caveats, observations, and stuff (not a comprehensive list, just what comes to mind):

Abstract is easier than representational.

I need to get better at choosing greens.

Making snakes out of wool roving is just like making snakes out of Play-dough.

It takes a lot less roving than you think it will to make a snake. A lot less. I kept forgetting.

Punching at an angle with the felting tool really will break a needle. No excuse for this. They warned me all over the place.

It's okay to cut the foam instead of trying to compress the whole block and force it into the oven mitt. They still sell foam at craft stores.

Felted oven mitts are uncomfortably warm if the temperature outside is above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I wonder if I can figure out a way to line them?