Claudia's sunset stripes baby cardigan

This is a sweater I'm making for my massage therapist, Claudia. I'm using the Elfin Stripes (Crochet) pattern.Her baby girl is due between Christmas and New Year's Day. Colors coordinate better in person. Was going to use just rose pink and plum mist (bottom stripes), but when I weighed the rose pink I wasn’t sure I’d have enough yarn for both the sweater and hat. Also I was concerned the pairing was too somber or sophisticated for a baby.

So I looked through the other pink yarn choices I had on hand thinking I’d alternate pairs of stripes. When I couldn’t decide I set out the three remaining pinks in order from light to dark. Finally chose the plum to be the only shade for CA and used multiple shades for CB. It’s sort of like a gradient seen thru stripes or bars or a bit like stained glass with dark lead borders. Also makes me think of the way astronomers can detect elements in the atmospheres of planets by viewing the light across the visible spectrum (split up like a rainbow) and observing where the dark bands are present. By noting the color the dark band appears in they identify a gas present.

Based on Ravelry project pics of sweaters with three or more stripe colors, it seems that to visually match the stripe from chest across to the upper arm I should have started with the lightest shade (sirdar click blossom)

This pattern would have been a lot easier with a diagram of how the divided sections would fit together and how to sew the sleeves in. It doesn't give a seam allowance; it would be nice to know how much of the edges the designer had planned for seaming. I followed the advice in others notes and worked the sleeves top down starting from the arm scythes. This made me wish I'd been a little neater with my edges and carrying colors up the side since I was starting with a row of sc over the last/first stitch in each row. Seems I could have crocheted over the very last two or first two stitches with double crochet instead just to neaten up. It all makes me wish I had a baby in front of me to try it on.

This is what the inside left half looked like before seaming the shoulder from front to back and then starting the sleeve. The notch for the neckline is at upper left.

Measured how many stripes fit into 6" on the back section and used that to plan what color would be first. Trying to get the stripes to match up sort of. The shoulder/sleeve seam drops so far down the arm I didn't want to start with pink poodle adjacent to the front/back shoulder seams.

update: waiting for more of the purple (plum mist) yarn to arrive; ETA 12/27. just don't have quite enough to do the cuff, waist and neck ribbing and button bands.