We had a nice lunch of chimichangas, fruit salad, and key lime pie before #1 daughter left.

Then I set out to felt the first pair of Christmas gift slippers.

It is, by the way, Guest Room Week at the HGP. Buy 2 extra nonperishables at the grocery this week, one for the holiday box and one for the charity box. Get one meal and one batch of cookies in the freezer. Buy 1/8 of the gifts you need to buy. Continue spending an hour a day on your giftmaking. And do a little fall decorating.

So, anyway, I set out to felt the slippers.

They were identical, and correct in every detail, as far as I could tell.

I always feel some trepidation when I felt things. It’s hard to get over the feeling that I’m wrecking my knitting. And in this case, I was, because they ended up completely different from one another, as the sad pictures below will show you.

Also, the upper edge was too loose.

I did all kinds of extra felting on the larger one and then took a crochet hook and elastic thread and fixed them as best I could.

They actually turned out pretty cute, but I won’t be able to give them as a gift.

These will have to be mine.

That’s not so terrible, of course. But it doesn’t bode well for the overall holiday slipper project.

These are the Ballet Slippers from Felted Knits, and I thought they’d be a good choice for the ladies on my list.

I had one more completed besides this pair — one more slipper, that is, not one more pair.

I took a much smaller needle and added a row and bind-off to the top to cinch it in.

This may end up creating a completely different look and feel from the pretty little ballet slipper.

It may end up making the upper edge so tight that the slipper is entirely unwearable.

This is what’s wrong with felting.

Or, perhaps, why I ought to stand there near the washing machine and check on the progress every couple of minutes, so I can catch these things before they get out of hand.

Or possibly why I shouldn’t be felting things, given my constitutional inability to be accurate.

Sigh.

It was nice to have #1 daughter home, but I did sort of feel as though we were always working and had no fun.

#2 son is coming home in a couple of days.

I don’t know why that is. It seems like midweek  is an odd time for him to come home. However, he may just be catching a ride with a classmate who is coming on a brief visit for some significant reason — a family event that makes it worth driving home just overnight or something.

We’ll be happy to see him, regardless.

I think the dogs miss him. #1 son and I were speculating on this, as we are both skeptical people.

Are dogs intelligent enough to miss people? Or maybe #1 son played with them more than the rest of us. They seem kind of neurotic since he left.

The dogs, and also the cat, come into my office and sit at my feel all day while I work. The cat doesn’t sit at my feet, actually. She walks around on my work surface, sometimes settling in front of the monitor. Not a popular move. I would in fact prefer that none of the animals come in here. I don’t need company. But they seem to feel that this is now the happening room, so there it is.