They're not tricks, Michael, they're illusions...

I signed up for a swap on Ravelry a couple of weeks ago, and its theme is Arrested Development... the show, not the 90s group that sang Tennessee. I thought I was going to have a tough time figuring out what to knit for my swap recipient, but then it came to me... Gob is a magician who uses cards and calls his tricks illusions. How fitting that I found a pattern for an Illusion Scarf!

Illusion knitting is pretty cool. You do two rows of each color the whole way through. The illusion comes by knitting and purling the background color in the shape of the pattern so its in stockinette and "lays down", so to speak. Then with the main color, you knit on both sides so its in garter stitch, and "stands up". It takes a little while to get used to, and you have to follow a chart, but once you get moving, its actually pretty easy and makes a lot of sense.

My illusion scarf is going to have each suit of a deck of cards, on each side. I'm doing spade, heart, diamond, club, then I'll repeat on the other side and attach them. I can do a "block" (normally blocks would be knitted separately and connected, but I'm knitting them all together) in under two hours, closer to one if I'm really paying attention. Saturday I was all alone, which was the perfect time to throw in my AD DVDs and knit some of the scarf. Check it out! See, it looks like a red, black and white striped scarf:

But when viewed at an angle, the illusion pops up! I just like saying illusion...

And this is what it looks like on the reverse, so you can see if you're on the right path:

In other knitting news, I think I hate the mohair shawl that I started. I've done a few repeats of the pattern and I'm just not digging it for what I'd be using it for. So, I hunted this morning for the perfect pattern and I think I found it. Luckily, I didn't knit too much of the shawl, so I don't really have to frog it, which is good because I've heard that frogging mohair is NOT fun. Instead of the shawl, I'll be making a scarf, in some kind of lace pattern. For MYSELF. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up making this, but longer:

Another exciting thing that happend this weekend is that Brady turned one!!! I can't believe it, it does not seem like a whole year ago that I was visiting Kelly in the hospital, but it was! Yesterday was his big party, with lots of family and friends. I was only able to get a couple of pics before my camera died, but here he is with those cheeks!

Too cute!!