Affectionately Colourful

I have always loved Veera Valimaki designs and I recently finished her new pattern, 'Colour Affection' and I'm thrilled with it. It's a beautiful shawl that stripes three colours of either fingering or lace weight yarn. When I first saw the pattern, I just knew I had to have one.

I knit mine out of a combination of my own yarn, Viola and Madelinetosh. I used Viola's Lace Merino yarn (held double) in the colourway 'Curry' and a skein of 100% alpaca that I had been testing in the dye pot for the prototype club colourway from last December, 'Breath'. I added a third colour called 'Lolita' in Madelinetosh Eyre Light and I think the three look lovely together. It's a really warm shawl due to its size and has been great during this cold snap we have been having. 

The shawl is a mixture of stripes and garter stitch that make for very addictive knitting. I love garter stitch and the short row shaping made this knit really fun to do. The pattern gives you the freedom to play with yarn weight, colours and different sizes which I enjoyed but found myself wanting to switch the final colours around a little. Ideally, I would have switched Breath and Curry round but I didn't have enough Curry. (Sidenote: There can never be enough Curry, yarnie or otherwise) Still, I love the result, don't you?