heymerle:

thefibrarchaeologist:

sunlit-capybara:

starsinursa:

“The markings upon the band begin to fade. The writing, which at first was as clear as red flame, has all but disappeared… a secret now that only fire can tell.” – The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, 2001

Want to knit this scarf? You can download my free pattern here! 🙂

This is called illusion knitting! Basically, you knit a pattern in 2 color stripes, but then you use the difference between the texture of knits and purls to make a pattern appear at a low angle

When you look at it from the aide, a knit stitch looks flat while a purl stitch looks like a little bump. So if you have a pattern of knits and purls you look at from the side, the knit stitches will fade into the background while the purl stitches will stay visible. You use that effect, while keeping a steady stripe pattern, to create the illusion:

From above: plain stripes because your eye focuses on the colors

From the side: you see the pattern of purl stitches because they stick up above the flatter knit stitches

(Photos source)

And this lets you do some absolutely AMAZING patterns:

Plain stripey shawl becomes a PORTRAIT

Or, like above, a scarf becomes the One Ring

This is fascinating, thank you for the explanation! I´ve never seen something like it, but I´m also not the most experienced knitter.

A source for patterns is http://www.illusionknitting.woollythoughts.com/information.html

The main site has all kinds of interesting knitting stuff, but this page is *just* illusion knitting.

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