Tux Scarf for my better half

I saw this pattern some time ago on Ravelry and knew immediately it will be a perfect gift for my boyfriend. Also, the project is based on an illusion knitting- something I never tried before. Since I always strive that the project I'm working on uses a technique I didn't learn yet (it keeps knitting interesting for me), this one ranks very high on the list "what to knit next?".

One of Ravelry's excellent features is that each pattern has links on to all projects people made using that pattern. I find that extremely useful because I can see how something looks in different colors, on different body constitutions, with modifications etc. And while browsing through other people's Tux scarves, I stumbled upon stitchystitchy's modifications. Since my boyfriend is a huge Gentoo fan, I asked stitchystitchy if it was all right to use her idea to switch the original "linux" part with "gentoo" version, as she did. She agreed and I started working on my "gentoo" chart. It was a pretty tedious job, but worthwhile in the end :). Chart looks like this...



...and when knitted like this...



Beside that alternation I followed instructions exactly as written in the pattern. The scarf turned out big and very long, but that shouldn't be a problem because my darling is a pretty big guy.

The idea of the illusion knitting is, as pattern says.." based on repeating throughout a set of stripes alternating 2 stockinette stitch rows in the foreground colour with 2 garter stich rows in the background colour. On RS, this will create a flat fabric for 3 rows followed by a bumpy one (the bumps caused by K on WS). When you get to knit the foreground pattern, you reverse this order: the background colour will be knit flat so that the bumps knit in the foreground colour can emerge. As a result, on RS, a slanted view will reveal the full illusion since you only get to see the bumps. From a frontal view, however, you will only see stripes, albeit slightly irregular in some places."

All in all, it's an easy technique and with a bit of effort you can make your own chart for whatever motive you like.



Yes, I wasn't thinking and I knitted the Tux chart from right to left, so my Tux looks on the right instead on the left. As my boyfriend said that is not a problem I left him the way he is. Luckily me, because the idea of ripping half of the scarf and starting all over again would give me a big headache.


And the technical details of the project:

pattern: Linux scarf by Heidi Antila, can be found at www.Ravelry.com

Tux image © 1997 Larry Ewing (1997) / GIMP (lewing@isc.tamu.edu), Permission to use and/or modify this image is granted provided you acknowledge him and The GIMP.

Gentoo "g" logo is a trademark of Gentoo Foundation, Inc.and Gentoo artwork s copyright Gentoo Foundation, Inc.

This is not an official product of the Gentoo Foundation, Inc.