I have always thought of Oven Gloves as a long rectangle of fabric with pads at each end.
When I was 11 our sewing class had to make some out of an old curtain. Luckily for me my Mummy was the sort of mummy that had old curtains and was willing to part with them for such purposes. Schools had some daft ideas back then. We had those oven gloves for years and years and years but they seem to have gone to Oven Glove heaven.
What Mummy has now are actual GLOVES made from insulated stuff which feels like suede. It is so obvious to have real gloves isn't it. Such a pity as I only very recently splashed out on a new pair of rectangle type oven gloves after the discovery that slugs love oven gloves and mine developed a hole when washed. I didn't see any real gloves with fingers for sale although they did have big thick mitten type ones.
The very latest thing seems to be silicone oven gloves - no fingers. Fingers does seem obvious doesnt it.
Currently my oven gloves are hidden. Since hiding them there has been no more Slug Trouble, and the one night I relented and put one back in the drawer, a large slug was sitting happily on top of it the next day. So now I used teatowels to remove hot things from the oven and am developing asbestos fingers. But one day this generation of slugs will be dead, and with them will die the secret map to Oven Glove Heaven in Kitchen Drawer, and I can go back to using them again.
Mine are the simple single strip of towelling with a pocket at each end for your hands. Fortunately it hasn't reached the attention of slugs yet.
It's strange the number of creatures that seem to like kitchens though. A daddy long-legs spider found its way into my gas oven recently. I know that because I found it lying browned to a crisp on a baking tray next to some oven chips. That'll teach it!
Nothing so interesting as Usurping Slugs happens to my oven mitts. Generally I simply set them on fire, and then need to purchase new ones.
Eccles, your crisped Daddy Longlegs reminds me of my Biology Professor Bill. He told the story upon returning from Baja peninsula Mexico. At the end of a successful zoological expedition and return to civilization, the scientists were eating at a Baja restaurant. Bill was served a beefsteak with a largish cockroach accidentally broiled on top. He refused to send it back to the kitchen, saying he preferred to know the exact final resting place of the insect so that he could accurately eat around it. [He felt somehow the kitchen staff, upon being alerted to the bug, would simply remove it in the kitchen and bring the same steak back to Bill.]
Possibly a health risk but it depends on how rare he liked his steaks. My spider was definitely not a health risk as it was well cremated (gas mark 7 for half an hour). 