About to be frogged

One of my students gave me a copy of Colorwork Creations as a good-bye present last year. I've been planning to knit her something from it and I finally got the chance to cast on after  Christmas. Unfortunately, the gauge in the book is 10.5 stitches per inch and the best I could achieve was 7.5 stitches per inch. (Yes, I'm a loose knitter.)

And yes, the mitten is almost double the width of my hand. The recipient's hands are even smaller than mine, so this clearly wasn't going to work.

I think I can rejigger the Sanquhar Squares pattern to reduce the mitten by about 25%. We'll see...