A Sweater for Bella

I'm in the process of knitting sweaters for my three Ruby Red dolls. I love using the variegated sock yarns and have a box full of them.  I chose a nice pink one ​with long lengths of each colour...

I've seen lots of doll sweaters knit from beautiful variegated yarn where each sleeve was knit in its entirety one at a time, and the colour stripes ended up very wide and the two sleeves don't match at all. So I developed a way to make both sleeves almost identical.

​This technique only works for the yarn that has long colour sections, not the yarn where the colour changes every few inches. The pink/purple one I used for this sweater has colour sections averaging around two yards/meters long.  I divide each colour section of the yarn in half as I get to it, and mark it with a safety pin. I start sleeve #1 with the first half of the first colour (purple in this case) and when I'm at the end of a row close to the safety pin, I cut the thread, then start the second sleeve, knitting until I get to the safety pin at the middle of the second colour.  Then I cut the thread and go back to the first sleeve and knit to the middle of the next colour....

Yes, this system means I have to weave away more threads, but it's worth it when both sleeves end up looking more or less identical....

Bella wearing her sweater...

*Note - I've decided to start an 'Under Construction' album in Favourite Photos, where I will copy any of my Blog posts relating to things I'm working on - like this one today. It will not be a list of in depth 'tutorials', but will be a place to find posts like this one without having to go searching through endless Archives. You'll still have to scroll down, but it will only be through other Under Construction Posts. Who knows, maybe something will inspire you?