I have been planning to knit a second Colour Affection for a while now. I wear mine all the time and every time I wear it someone compliments it. Since I knit the fingering-weight one last time, I thought I’d knit it in laceweight for the second go round for a little more versatility and so it isn’t just the same thing again. Then, Veera Valimaki went and released Happy Street and, well, my plans sort of changed.

Like Colour Affection, Sweet Street is a striped, garter stitch crescent shawl in three colours, but that’s basically where the similarities end. These stripes are wider and, because of some seriously clever short-rows, this shawl looks more like two colours striping over a solid background.

Saturday was the DKC Knitter’s Frolic in Toronto, so I hit up the marketplace with this shawl in mind. My original plan was to do the bright stripe in chartreuse and then choose contrasting colours based on that, but when I arrived at the booth for Sweet Fiber Yarns, that plan went straight out the window.

Sweet Fibre is new to me, and I was totally taken by their colours. I honestly wanted one of each, but I was very controlled and only bought three – all for this shawl. I was very tempted to go with a cashmere-merino blend, but then I remembered that there was a whole marketplace to shop in, so I needed to be smart (the rest of my purchases will get their own post). I was, of course, immediately drawn to the gold colour, and then to the smoky purple beside it. For the third colour (the background) I went with a grey that seemed to have some purple undertones. My Colour Affection is bright, and I wanted this one to be more subtle while still offering a pop.

I am in love. The purple and the grey are a little closer in tone than I was imagining, but I think as this grows they’ll gain better definition. The gold does exactly what I intended. I’m finished one fifth of the shawl (in repeats, not size), and the rows are already really long (over 200 stitches, I’d guess), but there’s something hypnotic and addicting about garter stitch stripes. My goal is to have this finished for my birthday, which gives me two weeks. That is rather optimistic I think, but who doesn’t like a challenge?