Marilyn Monroe Illusion by Steve Plummer

Marilyn Monroe Illusion

This pattern is available for £5.00 GBP
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This illusion was inspired by Andy Warhol’s screen prints of Marilyn Monroe. It uses similar unusual colour combinations but cannot precisely recreate Warhol’s style as only two colours are used in each of the ‘prints’.

When you look directly at the knitting you see four squares with narrow stripes. When you look from the side you see Marilyn’s face four times.

The pattern includes a cushion version, which is approximately 40 cm (16”) square when worked in DK yarn, and a wall-hanging which measures approximately 80 cm (32”) square. You could add more squares to make an afghan or throw.

The cushion uses two colours and only one colour is used on each ridge of knitting. The wall-hanging uses four colours and sometimes has one colour on a ridge and sometimes two. One of the photos shows the four colours that were used. These might seem surprising when you look at the four resulting squares.

This illusion is slightly more difficult to make than some of our others but still only requires fairly basic knitting skills.


Visit our World of Illusion Knitting site for more examples and tutorials.


The original Marilyn Monroe illusion (knitted by Woolhelmina) is now (May 2013) on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Hollywood.