On a complete impulse I bought a mixed lot of yarn on ebay. Bright pink isn't usually my thing, but it appealed to me so I snatched it up (paid about $35 with shipping). It contained:

2 balls NORO Kureyon 11, Fuchsia mix, 1 ball NORO Kureyon 106, Rose/orange mix, 1 ball HORSTIA Mulberry Silk/Merino, Dark rose, 1 ball ROWAN Linen Drape, Fuchsia, 1 ball SCHACHENMAYR Mirage, Rose/fuchsia, 1 ball SCHACHENMAYR Mirage, Dark orange. The seller (duena) threw in a picture for a cool striped pink sweater, that served as a locus for inspiration and improvisation.

Then I went to my local yarn store and bought: 3 skeins CASCADE Pastaza in Maroon and 1 skein TRENDSETTER Eyelash in maroon too.

US needles size 6 for 4/inch gauge.

I used the White Lies Shapely Tank Pattern (a free pattern available at http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/patterns/lpullovers/fbcprint.html) as a starting point, though made some changes. First, my gauge was 4 stitches/inch, so I modified it that way. Also, I wanted it to be longer (hip length, or 24") and didn't use the short row shaping at the bottom. Also, I wanted 3/4 sleeves, so I used the short sleeve pattern for the WLST, but made some changes there too. I made them longer (obviously), but also a bit narrower as the sweater is quite fitted.

My thoughts on making this sweater: I really liked the Pastaza, it was very pleasant to knit. And I always like Noro yarns. The Mirage was a little tricky to work with as you can't see your stitches at all through the fuzz. And I *hated* the Eyelash! I thought it would be fun, but it was hard to keep untangled and it took forever to make sure that the eyelashes were hanging on the right side of the sweater and not all bunched up in the following stitches. Those few rows took forever. I would have used more, but I hated it too much.

I knit the body in the round which was nice and quick and made the stripes go smoothly all the way around. However, I didn't really think about the sleeves as I was knitting the body and consequently was constantly snipping and weaving in ends when it came to the sleeves! Also, since I was using the space dyed Noro, I had to be careful to get the colors matched up. I used the two balls of Kureyon 11 for the sleeves, I was wise enough to realize that that was the way to go ahead of timeÉ I also ended up cutting out some colors here and there because I didn't like them as they were too dark or too discordant (e.g. some black/pink and some dark green).

My other major feat was matching up the stripes from the bodice to the sleeves. It took a fair amount of staring at the body and thinking to realize that I should match the pattern from the beginning of the sleeve cap to the bottom of the armhole and work forward and backward from there. That yielded good matching of the stripes (of course the Noro colors are different on the sleeves and body, but that couldn't be helped). What I did for the sleeves was to knit the bottom 6 inches to match the bottom of the body, then matched the top 9 inches to the top of the body counting from just before the beginning of the armhole. Then I left the middle 3 inches in the Pastaza with one pink stripe.

I am very pleased with the results!