Feathers

Notice anything about the second Dreambird feather?

On the first one (the lower feather), I tried to follow the (translated) written instructions, which are full of things like *shorten the row by 5 sts* and *place the dark pin*. I thought I was doing it correctly, but evidently and obviously, I was thrown off somewhere (most likely in not realizing which pin I was supposed to knit to).

Some of the problem is the translation (which is awkward), and some of it is that the instructions are just plain written in a way that I am not used to following (note, that I am not saying that they're wrong, or bad- just different, and for me, pretty confusing). By the time I got to the gray middle section, I switched over to the numerical instructions (the separate PDF download that comes with the pattern purchase).

Those worked much better. Note, I said *better*, not *easier*. This isn't a difficult pattern, but it's also never going to be mindless knitting. With the numerical instructions, there is no placing of pins or markers, just straight notations of how many stitches to knit (or purl) before turning. That means that every single row has to be counted (which also severely limits any conversation while knitting... or, in my case, listening to Mythbusters as Tori sings 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, which is probably where I messed up on the first feather).

At any rate, the second feather looks much more like the pictures, and I am happy with it. I'm not going to tear the first one out, in part because I am lazy that way, but also because it looks okay. It's the first feather on a mythical bird, it should be smaller than the others...

One thing I definitely did not understand, and I've read them over at least twenty times, is the description of casting on at the end of a row to offset the feathers. I gave up and did the backwards loop cast on and called it good.

Actually, it's all good- and I am enjoying this project. I think after a couple more feathers, I may even be able to answer The Hub when he asks me as question while I knit.