People often ask Steve to design particular illusion charts for them. He almost always says no. It is very time consuming and he always test-knits things himself to make sure they really work. He is always willing to help someone wanting to create their own and their are also tutorials on our web site.

A few weeks ago someone asked for help to create an illusion chart for the Om symbol. She just caught him at a time when he wasn’t designing anything else, and it was small and fairly easy, so he did it himself and we wrote a pattern for it.

llusions are notoriously difficult to photograph. This one shows the effects quite well from several different angles. This is probably because it is small with strongly contrasting colours. It was knitted in crochet cotton but would work in any yarn.

Buy the pattern – Iconic Om Illusion

In other news …

A few months ago I wrote about the eventful start we had to this year. One part of this was about my elderly step-father who moved into a very nice care home on February 15. Within days the home went into lockdown because of a stomach bug. It was just beginning to open up and Covid 19 came along. The home has fared very well and has sent us constant updates.

On June 25 (his 92nd birthday) Arthur fell and bumped his head. It was a very minor fall which didn’t require any treatment. The next day he fell again and had a very painful knee. The doctor came to see him. He was taken to the local hospital where they didn’t find anything seriously wrong though there was concern about why he had fallen twice.

The next day he had developed severe bruising and a lump on the knee so was taken, by ambulance, to another hospital for scans and other tests. They did not find anything wrong and he was provided with a zimmer frame so he could walk more easily. While he was there he was tested positive for Covid 19. He had not had any contact with anyone outside the home and there had never been any positive test on residents or staff at the home. His only contact with the outside world was on the previous day when he had been briefly to the hospital. The time frame seems far too short to be showing any signs of having contracted the virus.

Because of the positive test he had to stay in the hospital for seven days even though he did not need any treatment there. On the sixth day he was tested again, with a negative result. He was sent back to the home but they refused to accept him because the seven days were not up and they had not been notified of the negative result by email or fax. Back to the hospital again in the ambulance. I was kept informed by the home and hospital but, as it was now the weekend, they couldn’t do anything more until Monday. He was finally taken back to the home on Tuesday. Everything was fine. He is still very intelligent and astute but his short-term memory is failing. He wasn’t troubled by what had been happening because he didn’t really remember it.

In February we bought a Portal and this has proved to be a very good thing. He can cope with it much better than he could with a mobile phone. We have only ever had one problem which was when someone had accidentally turned off the power to it. On Tuesday of this week (roughly a month after his return to the home) we spoke to him on the Portal. He looked fit and well and said he was still using the zimmer frame because he felt safer that way.

On Wednesday we got a phone call from the home to say that, in the routine tests, he had again tested positive for Covid 19 and had to be confined to his room for 14 days. This won’t worry him. He is showing absolutely no symptoms. Everything he wants is brought to him and the room has its own wet room and toilet. There have still been no other positive tests at the home so the whole thing is a complete mystery.

Saturday August 8 update – He tested positive again but still absolutely no symptoms.
Wednesday August 12 update – Another negative test.
Monday September 7 update – Another positive test and, because of that, the care home has been closed to visitors until October 6.