Making my own knitting pattern: striped, well-fitting arm warmers

In the winter, my arms and shoulders often get cold while my torso is too warm. The solution: arm warmers. I had some yarn left over from an abandoned project, and I wanted to try and make arm warmers that would fit me really well and not slide down my arms. After some trial and error, I managed to knit these up. (To enter slideshow view, with bigger pictures, click on any of the pictures.)

I've worn these arm warmers pretty much constantly for an entire winter and they've worked well! They stay up all day (without any elastic) and fit me perfectly. They are very warm. I have a pattern drafted, and I make eventually make it available online.

Knitters can probably tell, but essentially, each arm warmer is knit flat, with the edges in garter stitch and the center in ribbing, and then sewn together to form a tube. I used a trick to make the stripes look more orderly in the ribbing section. The edges (garter stitch) are where all the shaping is. (For non-knitters, "shaping" is increasing or decreasing stitches to allow for the top of the arm warmer (bicep area) to be larger than the bottom of the arm warmer (wrist area)).