to frog or not to frog...

Do you tend to buy patterns or search the multitude of free ones? It's very rare for me to buy a pattern, especially as Ravelry makes it so easy to search all of the patterns under the sun.

But when I saw the Opulent Raglan by Wendy Bernard, I fell in love with it and was happy to shell out the $5.50 for the pattern. I love the neckline, I love the 3/4 sleeves. It will suit me down to the ground (hopefully not all the way down to the ground). It happened to be featured in an article about top-down knitting - one advantage of this method being that you can just carry on knitting until you've arrived at the right length - and being a gangly kinda gal, making sure it's a good length will be good.

So with pattern downloaded, which yarn to use. My first thought was to frog this. It's my design / spin / knit Ravelympics project. At the end of the fortnight, I was only about half a sleeve and the ribbed edging away from finishing it.

I very slowly arrived at the point of nearly being ready to cast off (you can see the circular needle still in the rib). This garment isn't going anywhere, the sleeves are a bit tight and short, and there are other adjustments I'd make to the pattern before making one that's wearable. So it's headed for frogging anyway, and it's a similar colour to the one in the new pattern, and the gauge seems about right.

I'm now in two minds. I grew less fond of the colour while I was knitting the cardy - it's a bit rustic, which might suit a handspun garment, but I think I'd like my new jumper to look a bit smarter.

What do you think?