While each project Is an individual — with unique charms and peculiarities — some projects are more peculiar than others.  And some are seriously out-of-this-world!  These are my Martians 🙂

This summer's Martian is Dreambird by Nadita.  It is a swirling crescent shawl of multicolored feather shapes on a background of Kidsilk Haze (silk/mohair).  Every incarnation of this project on Ravelry is stunning.  I was not looking for a complicated yet fabulous shawl project at the time, but it spread its beautiful wings and said "Take me to your leader" and the next thing I knew, I had downloaded the pattern and was ordering Noro Silk Garden Sock Yarn (a cosmic combination of colors: yellow, purple, deep green, black…) and frothy silver Kidsilk Haze.

While waiting for the yarn to arrive, I perused the pattern, but was not overly concerned that it made no sense.  Knitting patterns can be like that.  The chatty opening paragraphs assure the knitter that it is more complicated than it looks and that while working the first feather everything becomes clear and the following feathers will drop effortlessly from your needles….

But from the moment I began knitting, I was in the Twilight Zone!  I did the crochet cast-on, as recommended, for 130 stitches, with the "main yarn" and knit a row up until the last 5 stitches, mastered the German short-rowing technique, and hit ""pick up your feather yarn" like a meteorite slamming into a farmer's field….because I had considered the feather yarn (the cosmic Noro) to be the "main yarn" and the Kidsilk Haze to be the sort of background yarn!  So, I had cast on with the wrong yarn.  Oops.  Pull everything out and start over.  And that is how it went for the whole first feather.  

I would begin what I thought the directions were telling me to do, then realize I had it wrong.  Or I would find the instructions ambivalent or even contradictory until I compared the written part with the line-by-line stitch counts (ex. 22 k 39 p 6) and studied the photos and graphics (which were almost helpful).  And then I would make my best guess.  I was groping my way, row by row, and hoping it would end up looking like it was supposed to — since it was all sort of bunched up on the needles in short rows, it was impossible to tell…

There was a lot of "Okay, okay…Wait!  What the…?!  Grrrr….Phew!  Okay…What a wha…?"  And I may have thrown my knitting once.  And there was a lot of counting, tinking back, cussing, gnashing of teeth.

Let me emphasize that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the pattern!

It was entirely accurate and all the information you need to knit the beautiful Dreambird shawl is there.  It is just all written in, um, Martian.  It required a lot of interpretation (for me — it probably makes total sense to other knitters, who may or may not be extra-terrestrials).  

I have completed the 6th feather now and we co-exist in peace, my Martian and me.  Sometimes I even knit directly from the pattern without consulting my Martian/English Dictionary And Traveler's Phrase Book.  That's pretty good. The Dreambird is fascinating to knit — what with the short row magic that shapes the feathers and the color changes that make each feather unique — and when it is done, I will have a most curious, exotic, truly far out shawl!