©Pat Ashforth & Steve Plummer 2021

©Pat Ashforth & Steve Plummer 2021

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ACE OF SPADES by MORGRAINE EDDINGTON

Morgraine Eddington

UK

Morgenstern75

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I was browsing the Illusion Knitting thread on Ravelry and was pretty impressed with the big wall hangings - just the scale of them, and the careful shading really blew me away. There were quite a few musicians in there and I thought about trying to chart someone from the world of metal. It suddenly came together in a flash - my husband’s a massive Motörhead fan and he had a significant birthday coming up later in the year. When I started browsing through pictures of the band I just kept coming across images of the Ace of Spades and it just popped into my head - what if I made the illusion part of a giant playing card?

I got REALLY excited then, and it lasted all the way from starting to sketch a chart to the last stitch - every night I was jumping up and down to see what the picture looked like after another evening’s knitting! Obviously I couldn’t hide it from my husband - he was wondering why I was singing Motörhead songs all the time and reading up on Lemmy, so I had to confess during the design stage. He will get socks for his birthday instead :)

When I first started thinking about this piece, I had absolutely no idea how the principle worked or how to go about charting, so I spent a long time reading and rereading the tutorials on the Woolly Thoughts website to make sure I understood how to make it work. What I really wanted to do is buy and knit someone else’s chart first, to get experience, but I was so excited about Lemmy that I couldn’t face delaying! I used Photoshop Elements and then Excel to help me create the chart and that worked pretty well.

My favourite part about this piece is that it’s deceptive - because it’s actually a picture of a sort from the front, people think that’s all it is and don’t bother looking for anything else. That way, when they see the illusion it’s quite a shock! I also hope that somehow Lemmy finds out about this tribute and invites me and hubby for a pint. ;)