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Ahhh remember the good old days? The days when you’d put together an almighty to-do list and then swear you’d stick to it no matter what? Remember those days back in December 2022 (all of 13 days ago!!!) when I swore I’d stick to my Ravelry queue in this post? 13 days in and its already fallen apart…

A few months ago, I received the most beautiful silky, cashmere-y, wooly, soft yarn from Magpie Fibers. It’s got the most beautiful drape, even in skein-form, and I SCOURED the internet trying to find a pattern worthy of its (expensive) price tag (v. v. grateful I didn’t pay for the 5 skeins!)

Finally, a pattern was found. A pattern I considered worthy, in Rebecca Clow’s Cargill Sweater. I mean LOOK AT IT!

It’s light, it’s airy, it looks phenomenal, and after forking out over £7 for the pattern, at first glance everything looked okay. I actually cast it on before Big Ben’s New Year chime, and that’s when chaos ensued. I just could not get this pattern right, even after contacting the designer, my beautiful yarn was frogged.

The pattern repeat itself is fine. The directions are clear, except for the yoke, which is the foundation on which this whole sweater is built. There is a lot of ‘guesswork’ required, and upon being told the pattern should be ‘mirrored’ either side, and not getting past row 4 on 3 separate attempts, I decided I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my stash of precious wool on a pattern that had only, in my mind, been half written.

I spoke to testers who admitted that they had all raised concern at this point in the pattern with the designer, and were surprised the designer had gone ahead with the publication with no modification. They too, couldn’t help me much other than saying that it needed to be figured out yourself – which you wouldn’t expect from a £7 pattern.

Putting my disappointment, and near-ugly tears to one side, I went completely off-piste with a crochet pattern that wasn’t even on my Ravelry queue- in order to settle my mental health. The frustration caused to me by the restrictions of a pattern, was not starting my 2023 off on the right foot so I needed a change of focus sharpish.

Enter, the Aureole Beret.

First spotted on the Pom Pom mag Instagram, I knew I needed to get ahold of the pattern in the Autumn issue. So after ordering from my usual Pom-dealer, the Fibre Fox, I had pattern in hand and the quest had begun to find a matching yarn.

Enter my bestie, Michelle, who had dyed up PERFECT yarn just for me (named Aly’s Dream) in shades of pink and purple. Held double with the leftover laceweight yarn from my Darmody, made earlier in 2022, I acheived the sport-weight requirement of the pattern easily and my gauge was bang on after making a modification to the ribbed band.

Instead of the Sl St BLO, I subbed out for a [US] sc blo instead is it meant I didn’t have a death-grip on my hook at the making of each stitch, and it offered the band more stretch. That being said however, since blocking, the ribbing is a touch too wide for me, and will probably require a Sl St edging to keep it more in place, but the pattern itself has come out phenomenally well and it was so good to put my entire trust in a designer and get the results I was crying out for with Cargill.

Since writing this post I’ve actually put a video blog, or “vlog”, together to go through my project plans and to show you some of my WIPs. You can find it here and I hope you enjoy watching it!