Richard Wiseman (psychologist, magician, sceptic and general amazing funny man) made my day the other day. That's the second time he's managed that. The first time was when he came to my work and did one of our lunchtime seminars. Our seminars are usually science/research based - always very interesting but often a bit heavy on the overcrowded powerpoint slides of methodology, data and statistics. Richard Wiseman walked in and stunned the room with magic tricks. I have never seen a room of professionals light up quite like that before. It was like...er...magic. He continued to captivate us with magic, psychology, ghosts and luck for the rest of the seminar and almost a year on his name is still whispered in the corridors in awed wonderment. We're an easy bunch to impress.
http://www.illusionknitting.woollythoughts.com/videos.html
Oh. Em. Gee.
Wow.
And wow again.
Being who I am, I went through my usual set of motions. I watched the videos. I wondered in amazement. I called my long suffering husband over and made him watch them while I wondered in amazement. And then I decided: "I'm doing to do that".
After some frantic googling, I found a free pattern and dived right in. Much to my long suffering husband's surprise (?) it took about 5 minutes of needle clicking before I was swearing. The first (ok, and second) attempt was unravelled in a blaze of expletives and I crossed-my-heart-and-hoped-to-die that it was the pattern's fault and not mine.
Never one to be defeated - well not for more than half and hour anyway - I soon found another pattern and got clicking.
OK, so it's not quite the Mona Lisa, but it's not bad for a first attempt:
Stripes
Heart
My only regret is that I didn't try something more ambitious. Better rectify that.
And to give credit where credit's due: http://sites.google.com/site/laurasknits/illusionheartdishcloth
