We had a great holiday weekend, I hope you did as well.  I managed to complete nearly all of my Christmas shopping in the last few months (seems to be a trend in blogland), so the weekend after Thanksgiving was spent mostly relaxing and enjoying family time.  I put up my tree on Friday, and wanted to make some new ornaments for it.  Last year Elliot and I made cinnamon ornaments that were easy, cute and nice smelling to boot.  I decided then that making ornaments would be an annual tradition. 

While at my in-laws cottage, I cut out 30 tiny mittens from cream colored felt-- two for each ornament.  The felt happens to be from JoAnn's, and if you've seen it, you'll know it is a really fluffy felt, more the texture of boiled wool.  As far as I know, it only comes in cream; their colored felt has more of a woven feel.  After I cut out the mittens, I was trying to decide how to finish them.  I didn't really want a blanket stitched edge, and worried that I would have a hard time machine sewing them neatly enough.  I thought of just whip-stitching them, but again, wasn't sure if I wanted to see all of the stitching.  Finally, I decided to needle felt them.  I was really going for a clean simple look.

I started by adding a few details to each mitten by needle felting stripes, polka dots, or tipping the fingers and thumb;  Then, I felted around the edge until they were firmly connected.  At first I used single felting needles, but on day two went and bought a few Clover felting tools which have multiple needles.  This made the process speedier, but they were pretty fast to begin with.

I think this may be my new go-to craft for TV watching.  It's mindless and relaxing, and I can complete something without even getting up.  Since I don't knit and barely crochet, this is a great thing to keep me occupied on these winter nights.  And mostly, I'm glad that I finally used these supplies that I bought 2 or 3 years ago.  I don't know what took me so long!