Round and Round We Go

Here is my first attempt at a moebius scarf using the techniques in Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi. I wasn't sure how it would work out, so I just grabbed some cheapie Lion Brand Homespun from the stash. Probably not the best yarn to start out with, as the texture made it a little difficult to pick out the stitches in the first row after the cast-on, but it's just an experiment. The technique is a little hard to explain, but involves casting on two rows of inter-related stitches simultaneously, then knitting all the way around each side on a long circular needle. So your cast-on row is the center of the moebius, and each row you knit actually makes a row on each side of the cast-on edge. Confusing, no? But very cool. No grafted edges as in most knitted mobii. The projects in this book are fascinating, especially to those of us who have an Inner Math Geek along with the requisite Inner Knitting Geek.

(If you don't know what a moebius strip is, a google search will take you to lots of math sites and knitting patterns. Basically, if you take a long strip of paper, twist it once, and then tape the ends together, you end up with a one-sided surface. No joke. Try it! Start writing along the edge of the moebius strip and you will go all the way around until you come back to where you started, without ever flipping the paper over.)

As you can see from the close-up shot, this is not your usual way of using a circular needle.

As a bonus, this book gave me a great excuse for finally buying a set of Denise needles. I got a great deal on mine from Copper Moose, via E-bay.