My Family Knit Circle

Sometime last week, I suggested my family to knit each other something for Valentine's Day.  I was half joking when I said that, but my fiance and daughter liked the idea, they started knitting.

My daughter just made a simple cowl last week. From the day she continues to knit.  She finished a dress for her stuffed animal Neko-chan, she's now working on a sweater for a teddy bear, and a crane for her grandmother who's ill. She's pretending like she's a dress maker, taking orders from all of her stuffed animal.  This should keep her very busy! 

I'm surprised how fast my daughter learns, knitting is so natural to her, she's just good at it.  I remember when I started knitting, I had trouble holding the sticks in my hands,they felt very uncomfortable in my small hands, and I was also impatient.

My fiance knew how to knit and purl, but the most advanced skill he ever learned was mistake rib stitch.  After his first attempt of making a scarf which he never finished, he quit knitting for a while.  This time he picked a beautiful shawl pattern for me to wear, it's not an easy pattern for beginner to follow, but he's doing much better and more interested in knitting than ever before.  I guess the repetitiveness of the rib stitch of a scarf was quite boring for him.
 
The pattern he picked is called Springtime Bandit, it's a beautiful triangular shawl. I've been wanting to make it for a while now.  I really can't wait for him to finish!  Here is the work he has done so far.  He's finished the set up pattern.

The yarn used is Wool Clasica by Manos del Uruguay.  Ohhhh, I like Manos!  Speaking of Manos, we have red Manos and blue Manos in our stash, two skeins each (Yes, "we,"  my fiance buys yarn just because they are cool, even though he hasn't created anything out of them. I guess I'm the lucky one.).  Him creating the shawl made me quite anxious, it's not because he's a beginner, but I haven't tried the pattern for myself and I really want to try it out.  Of course I'm going through the pattern with him while he knits, but I want to try it out with my own hands.

While I was knitting the sleeve of a sweater, all I thought was making the same thing with the blue yarn.  It was very hard for me to tame the temptation, I almost wanted to stop knitting the sleeve and start on the shawl.  Luckily I didn't have any extra cables for the circular needles (since my family started to knit, more needles are in use), I had to give up.  Anyways he's not the type of guy who wears a lace shawl.  After finishing the sleeve, I decided to knit him a simple triangular shawl.  The color of the yarn reminds me of the old school bandannas.