Magic Is Just An Illusion

More Christmas Knitting. This is T's Magic Scarf. It depicts the 5 mana symbols from Magic the Gathering along the length of the scarf. But... and here's the really magical part... it's an illusion!

Illusion knitting is so super clever. Basically, the pattern is done on a contrasting color, like always. But some stitches are raised and some are flat. In between your contrasting color rows, you have main color garter ridges. So when you are looking at the scarf straight on, you see a garter ridged striped scarf.

But when you look at it from the side... wow! Hidden pictures! I am like a little kid when I look at it, tilting it back and forth, back and forth. Here's the picture, now it's gone. Now it's back. Now it's gone.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the pattern to go away when I took the picture. I tried flash, no flash, overhead light, indirect light, natural light, and every angle possible, but the camera just kept picking up the hidden picture. I guess it's true what they say: the camera doesn't lie. I promise you, the illusion is there.

This was the one Christmas gift that was really hard for me to keep secret. I really wanted to talk about this every step of the way--first, because I really spent a lot of time creating the graphs for this; then, I started it and frogged a couple of times to get it right; and then, when I finished I was so excited!

As you know, T and I own Gamerz, Indiapolis' largest game store, so this is a particularly fitting scarf. T had a lot of fun showing this off to everyone. It garnered a lot of awe, a lot of ah, and several "name your price" offers.

I'm very pleased with it.