In the Shadows

In February I received three new knitting books from my wonderful husband.
Hooray for the amazon.com wish list feature. Through the year if I come across
a book I would like I just add it to the list. 

A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi. This book shows several projects that use her moebius
techniques.

Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans of Harry Potter by Alison Hansel.
This book features patterns for many of the sweaters, scarves, and other
knits from the movies.

Stitch ‘n Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook by Debbie Stoller.
This author has a wonderful sense of humor while covering the basics and some
patterns.

You might think is an illusion but it is all in the shadows.


The first project from these books was out of the Stitch 'n Bitch. I decided to
use some of the yarn left over from the soap savers and washcloths to try the Alien Illusion Scarf pattern. The scrap yarn was just enough to do one alien face. This is definitely a project to do when you don't have any distractions or help. A counter is a must to keep track of which row you did last. I also found checking the wrong side helped me see progress and where I left off the night before. The technique itself is a basic set of four rows worked in pairs of contrasting colors in basic knit and purl stitches. The trick is to make sure all the stitches are where they need to be. It is sort of like doing a cross-stitch pattern in knitting. This experiment will most likely become a pillow cover.

Wikipedia: Shadow knitting 

There are several sites on the internet with patterns for "illusion" or
"shadow" knitting. 

Knitty Gritty: Illusion Knitting


Heidi’s Knitting Room: Illusion Knitting

Snowflake Illusion Scarf


Fresh Isle Fibers: a site of pattern links

I am definitely going to be trying this technique again. I'm curious how
this technique used with glow-in-the-dark yarn would look.