or buy at Payhip or LoveCrafts.

When you look straight at the knitting you only see stripes. Mona Lisa and her enigmatic smile are revealed when you start to move around. Photos can never convey the WOW factor you get when you see this in real life.

The illusion shown in the photos was made in Stylecraft Special DK, using three balls each of Black and Cream. It measures 86 cm by 114 cm (34” by 45”). I do knit very tightly though so yours may well turn out to be bigger and use more yarn.

The pattern includes several versions of the chart including one for mobile devices where you can see 20 ridges at a time and always be able to see the numbers underneath.

Two of the images here are an experiment in the use of Lego Digital Designer, a freely downloadable program, to replicate the image created using illusion knitting. Using the program the design can be viewed from all angles and seems to be a useful substitute for test knitting.

Visit our World of Illusion Knitting site for more examples and tutorials.

My Mona Lisa is now on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Dallas, TX (May 2013)

The last image is an animation.