Stitchboard Admin message #2
Re: Rectangle vs square pattern in illusion knitting
October 13, 2016 at 8:28:50 AM  (in response to margaretrer message #1)
 
Margaret,

Welcome! 

You've asked an excellent question!  Conventionally for knitting, you'll use a rectangular stitch; however, it's more complicated with illusion knitting.  With illusion knitting, you're really knitting four rows for every "normal" row.  Plus, your stitches that make the illusion image visible aren't the conventional stockinette, but rather combinations of stockinette and garter stitch, of which the latter are more compact stitches.  Working the stitches as if they're square, for example, 10 stitches x 10 rows to form a square instead of 10 stitches x 12 rows to make a stockinette square, can keep your finished piece showing less distortion as you view it from the proper angle.

A caveat - this also is affected by size of image.  If your image is very large, rectangular is probably a better choice (considering there's more real estate in the image, which could throw it off visually), but smaller, square stitches should cause less distortion.

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