Hmm.

While it's a very nice mitten, it's not quite what I had in mind.  I like the pattern very much, and the thumb practically knits itself, it's so easy to do.  Even though I do plan on making the other mitten in the pair, I'd like to take this opportunity to make some observations while thinking about giving this pattern another go.

First, you can't see it but the rows of colors don't quite match up, so the pattern gets a little wonky on the inside of the wrist.  I need to dig up some instructions about making knitted stripes match up to each other.

The hand is slightly large on me, but the thumb is outright too big.  Next time, I should knit the medium size, and now that I know how it works I can measure my thumb and make some adjustments to the number of stitches to make it smaller.

If I'm really going to imitate Saxon gold work, I need to find a yellower gold-colored yarn.  Something along the sunshine yellow line would do well.  I have plenty of the red and blue, which are perfect for what I wanted.

These aren't hard-wearing mittens meant for bitter cold.  They're light weight, and would be elegant made in colors to match an outfit.  I also really like the hand part of this pattern, and can envision it in some variegated yarn and using it with a k2p2 cuff for The Emperor.  I love the way the thumb is constructed -- it's much easier than the other thumb pattern I've been using, and I want to design a fingerless mitt that employs it.  For now, though, I need to just make the other mitten for this pair, and get back to the front band for Jupiter.