Double Cuff Felted Mittens

A friend loaned me the book Knit One, Felt Too to get some ideas about what to do with three skeins of teal yarn I got at the holiday bazaar. The teal is so bright that it is hard to decide what it would look good as.
While paging through the book I came across the pattern for Double Cuff Mittens. I didn't really want teal mittens, but I knew I had lots of odds and ends of purples blues and pinks that I could knit up and felt into some mittens. Here is the collection of yarn I started with (the pink is missing).I knit two strands together for the whole mitten because the yarns were thin. I really wanted to use up the large purple-blue skein that had gotten partially bleached by the sun. So this strand was knit through the majority of the both mittens and the faded portion just added to the variegated nature of the mittens. I have small hands so I knit them on 10 1/2 needles instead of the size 11s called for. However after knitting the first cuff I found that I was getting the gauge, so I decreased 4 stitches for two rounds before beginning the thumb gusset. This makes them have the flair around the cuff.
Here are the two mittens finished with the knitting. I wish I had knit the whole hand using the purple/blue/pink variegated yarn but I was afraid I wouldn't have enough for the thumbs so I switched to a pink. It ended up I had a little left over after making thumbs but I didn't want to go back and rip out the tops of the hand. They still look fine.
I felted them in a zippered pillow case in my washer with some dark sheets on the hot water setting. I set the timer for 9 minutes and would return to check on them. Each time I set the water back to the beginning of the agitation cycle. It took 27 minutes for them to felt. The last step was to make the knitted cuffs that get sewn on the inside so that the mitten hugs your wrist. I used up the Elsebeth Lavold Angora yarn that was left over from my Koolhaas hat to make the inner cuffs. It is my hope that now that it is March I won't have a chance to try wearing them until next winter. However, my husband assures me I probably will need them yet this month.