Illusion knitting uses the texture of smooth knit stitches and raised purl stitches, combined with stripes of colour, to produce a unique design. The knitting looks like bumpy stripes when you look at it straight on, but when tilted away from the eye to view at an angle, the raised purl stitches are the only ones visible and the hidden design appears!

Many illusion knitting patterns use only two colours, but I’ve designed these convertible flip-top mittens with stripes of four colours so you will see a full-colour cupcake, complete with cherry on top. Plus, you work with only one colour at a time for each round…so easy!

Instructions are written out in full, but I have also included a chart for the illusion portion if you would prefer to follow that than the row-by-row written directions.

Supplies:
Set of size 5 (3.75 mm) dpns
(or size needed for gauge of 20 stitches to 4”/10 cm)

Cascade 220 Aran Superwash in four colours:
A: background/main colour 80 g (less than one full skein)
B: cupcake wrapper colour 35 g (about a third of a skein)
C: cherry colour 25 g (about a quarter of a skein)
D: icing colour 50 g (about half a skein)

Darning needle to work in ends