Felt like new mittens..

This winter
has been very cold, and my old favorite gloves are getting worn out. I've tried many kinds of glove and mitten configurations, but the ones which worked best for my Raynoud's syndrome ( painful cold fingers with exposure to cold) seemed to be alpaca mittens inside of polar fleece mittens. So I wondered if putting alpaca mittens inside felted mittens might do the trick also. I knit some huge mittens from one skein of Cascade 220, following this pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/stockbridge-felted-mittens, and felted them as directed twice in the washing machine. They shrunk very nicely:

 

Above are the "before" photos, and here is the "after":

My plan was to line them with alpaca mittens, but I haven't made them yet. A friend gave me some lovely polar fleece, and I made liners for them, but the combination was too stiff, so I plan to knit some alpaca ones soon. Unfortunately the thumbs are a little too long, but that is fine. Meanwhile, I have more cowls on the needles!