I signed up to take a clsss on this at Stitches West because I was having a terrible time wrapping my brain around how this works. I kept thinking I "got" it and then not.
As it turns out, there's a good reason for that because, like short rows it is really a simple thing that people tend to overthink. I've genned up a pdf of a simple chart and terse instructions for a pink and green basketweave/checkerboad pattern for folks to take a test drive with.

	Alien Illusion Pillow -- Took me a few false starts and a certain amount of blind leap of faith knitting (not someting I'm famous for) but I attacked the Alien Illusion Scarf from Stitch N Bitch as a pillow. I used some near day glow green acrylic combined with a mid green Handcrafter cotton. I had planned to do a bit of applied icord to finish it off but just went with the crochet sew and get it delivered plan B. The photo shows it pre-assembled.
After I created Brian's Alien pillow, I started down the path of adapting intarsia motifs into illusion knitting. There are multiple problems with that little exercise. For one, the four rows of knitting for each "slice" of the image makes for a really long chart and even nastier written instructions. Then, the gauge also strongly distorts the image so you can't just translate from one to the other so it is pretty much a swatch city effort. Here are some examples of the now you see it and now you don't nature of this technique. The skull in icky too large gauge acyrilic was my first indication that swatching and adjusting was going to be the only way to really achieve a good result. One of the smaller gauge versions is sideways versions shown here . That swatch inspired the birth of Band O and Bucket O Bones as commission pieces for a friend.
	Band of Bones knit in Black and White Fixation. The knitting on this follows standard illusion/shadow knitting technique and it totally stealth when viewed on the right side by the uninitiated. I did a less than fab-o kitchener of the Skull and cross bones headband before Stitches West. Some ofther images of the band o now you see it and now you don't showing off her glory. Two more views here and here. Band O is eventually going to be given to an unsuspecting target aka friend.
	Bucket O Bones knit in Black and White Fixation I worked on this during Stitches West 2005. I was calling the bucket a skull cap while working it but the shape is more a bucket hat. Knit from the top down it is not typical of illusion/shadow knitting as it is not very stealth on the right side but it is pretty stealth when viewed from the wrong side. This hat now lives with a friend of a friend who lives in the Pacific Northwest and is very into Day of the Dead. I was so taken by this hat that I did one for me. Both that hat and its twin (courtesy of a test knitter who assured me that no one in her neck of the woods would wear such a thing) can be viewed at Son of Shadow.

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