Matt Whistler on illusion knitting

Blankety blanket, blankety blanket, blankety blanket! They come in all sizes, have saved lives and stop dew seeping onto your derrière while eating shortbread and drinking Camp coffee (try it, it tastes great!). The Himalayan yak-hair blankets keep you warm in the cold and cool in the heat. There’s the cutesy, hand-knitted patchwork granny blankets you can hold in the air and prod your finger through. Let’s not forget the hardcore nondescript blanket that stops your bollard with a Banksy on it from crumbling during a move.

But I have discovered a completely new type of blanket and it’s mind blowing. Well, it’s more of an artistic knitted wall hanging based around mathematical equations. The brain child of Woolly Thoughts are former maths teachers, married couple and artists Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer. But that’s not all, these clever cookies have invented illusion knitting and their masterpieces are being displayed in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum. The concept is simple: you stare at a knitted wall hanging that’s blank, think to yourself ‘well, that’s not exactly worth writing home about’, then you step to one side feeling disappointed and sideways glance at the hanging which reveals with a three-dimensional feel, any number of illusion designs. Elvis, Leonardo, Nefertiti, The Great Pyramid…