Knitting, There Has Been Knitting, Part 1

It may not seem that way, with many of my ABC-Along posts not being knitterly-related, but There Has Been Knitting!

For this post, there is a top-down in-the-round raglan jumper for JJ. He's modelling it here. One of the beauties of top-down is that the jumper can be tried on as I knit. So far it's not too bad.
I will need to make sure the arms don't get too wide when I pick them up at the raglan end. JJ has slender arms. I will knit the arms on circular needles too, which will mean no seams.

The yarn is three different colourways of Moda Vera Crave, blue-to-black, grey-to-black and green-to-black. Rather than just joining in a new colour, I've done a transitions stripe of 1-4-2-3-3-2-4-1. Add this to the already colour-changing nature of the yarn, and the striping looks a lot more complicated than it is.
I have superimposed this row pattern on the close-up photo above.
The photo below shows the bottom rib border, which I finished after JJ tried on the jumper
And, bonus, JJ says he likes it! Must finish it while it's still winter.

J Is For JJ

Here is my beautiful boy, age about two.

He was a delight at every age, although I had to work hard to stay connected during his teenage years. Watching Rage together and playing the same computer games helped.

There's some more about him in the slide-show below. Let me know if it doesn't work properly.


And here he is with his Choc Mudcake birthday cake, with candles, in March this year.
He's just turned 24.
P.S. JJ is not his name, nor his initials. It's the initials of one of his on-line nicknames.
_

I Is For Illusions

"It's not an optical illusion
- it just looks like one!"

I have been fascinated by illusions and optical illusions since childhood.
Please excuse the quality of the top photo - it was taken forty years ago! I was mucking about with school-friends, when I spotted the possibility here. So, the snap. I didn't really have a schoolmate small enough to stand on a friend's hand!

Three-and-a-half decades later, I'm still at it, playing with illusions in photo compositions. Here, JJ can hold up our campervan in just one hand! He's strong!


And here, Mr M pats the top of a lighthouse. He's veeeery tall!

Just so you know, this is that lighthouse, shown below. The person at the bottom gives the true scale.


This illusion above is more natural, a rock that looks like an animal. It's the swirl of the water which enhances the illusion, making it look as if the creature is swimming along.

Of course, its the persistence of vision which provides the illusion of continuous motion, the basis of film, movies and animation. Here is a short animation made from still shots of an Escher print. It was an exercise for school; the Photoshop work took all day - the animation compiling took about ten minutes!


There is also illusion knitting, also known as shadow knitting. I've had a try at that, with this top. Directly front-on, there's just horizontal stripes.
At an angle, the vertical stripes magically appear! (must finish it one day ...)


And last but not least, the illusion here - how many rail-tracks are here? The angle of the sun was just right to make this illusion. And I had the camera ready. Oh, the location? Busselton Jetty, in WA. - It's the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere - 2 kilometres long.