Illusion Knitting
A few days ago, Cathie, a fellow list member, asked me about
Illusion Knitting on the Bond. That got me interested in this technique again,
I always enjoy a challenge! I had seen pictures of this on the net before but
never investigated further as to how it is done, especially since it said that
a garter carriage was required. Well, thanks to Cathie, I checked further and
found Milla's
site, she has quite a few pretty patterns for illusion knitting and also
describes how to convert her charts to hand knitting.
Lynda's site also has a picture of a sweater knitted in this technique as
well as instructions for making your own patterns. Both ladies were kind enough
to answer a few questions for me. Since I could not immediately figure out how
to do this on our machine, I did a small hand knitted sample and the fog slowly
began to lift.....here's a sample that I charted and knitted on the Bond, I
thought it might be cute to have red hearts on a white background, possibly
for a Valentine's sweater. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to get a good
scan of the hearts since you have to hold the knitted piece nearly upright to
get the right angle (that digital camera is still on my wish list!), but hopefully
you can get the general idea:
When you look at the knitted piece from the front, you see
red and white vertical stripes, as you turn it sideways, you'll see a solid
white background with red hearts. It's really amazing, I had never seen this
before! The picture on the right is an attempt to show both effects at once,
using a miror. I had the sample standing nearly upright with a mirror leaning
against it, you can see how the pattern is much more obvious from that angle.
Anyway, here is how it works:
You use two contrasting colors, one for the background and
one for the pattern. For the chart below, you would start with red yarn and
knit two rows. You then reform all the stitches ( use the latch hook tool just
as you would in ribbing) represented by red squares on Row 2 of the chart to
knit stitches. Only the stitches of row 2, not the ones from row 1! Then you
knit two rows with white yarn and reform all the stitches represented by blue
squares on Row 4 to knit stitches also. This process is repeated throughout.
The red reformed stitches, in my chart, will make up the hearts, the white reformed
stitches will make up the background. You basically end up reforming an entire
row of stitches in all every four rows.
With a garter carriage this naturally goes much faster and
an entire sweater can be knitted with an allover pattern like this one. The
sweaters must always be knitted sideways, otherwise the effect would not be
there. On the Bond, I would stick with a front panel knitted in this technique.
You could knit the back and sleeves the normal way and then add the ribbings.
Or you could knit the entire sweater sideways but knit everything but the front
panel in one or the other color. You'll have vertical stripes on the front and
the pattern will appear and reappear as you turn, really interesting! Or you
could just make a sample and let your friends wonder how you did it! :)
Here is the Chart:
The pattern stitch repeat is 16 sts and 72 rows and begins
with column 2 on the left side. There is more than one sideways repeat of the
pattern as I wanted to knit a large enough sample. Yarn used was Red Heart 4-ply
and keyplate 3.
I still haven't found a quick way to add numbers to the pictures,
so you would want to mark the row and stitch numbers. It also helps a lot to
mark the stitch numbers on the needle bed. A multiple latch hook tool comes
in handy, but the sample can be done without it. Let me know if you have any
questions and what you think if you try this technique!
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This page was last updated on 28-October-1999
