Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Moebius Knitting


I said I needed something to kind of tweak my imagination and this Moebius knitting is doing it. It boggles my mind even as I knit round and round and watch it happening. You are knitting from the center out instead of the usual one end to the other, knitting both outer edges at the same time. In the picture above, you can probably easily see that I would be knitting around the outside of the circle, but at the arrow where I indicate the cables cross, I suddenly am knitting along the inside of the circle, which now flips to become the outside circle. Technically, this scarf that I am making will have only one side - the method creates a continuous Moebius loop or band.


I'm using directions and pattern from Cat Bordhi's book Treasury of Magical Knitting. The picture above is from the book and shows a little better the way the circular knitting needles are set up. The point where the cables cross is where the magic happens.


This illustration from the book shows how to take a strip of paper and turn it into a Moebius band by twisting, then joining the ends. One could knit a rectangle, make the twist and whip stitch the ends together to form such a scarf, but where's the fun in that? This method is absolutely seamless and I rather like the way it is working. Love the bamboo tipped needles as well.

The dreary wet day has lent itself well to a bit of this knitting, and it also encouraged me to put in some time at the machine continuing the quilting on the string quilt. But seriously, I'd rather have the sun back. If I promise to keep working, will you come back please?

3 comments:

Katney said...

I've done that--except I was trying to start a stocking cap and a moebius strip just doesn't work for that. Maybe I need to make some scarves instead.

The Idaho Beauty said...

Actually, this book includes some stocking caps, although she admits a purist might say they are not true Moebius. Just the bands are, then she has a method to change over to normal circular knitting to complete the cap.

Michelle said...

This book is awesome..
For a knitter like me this book contains a new world of excitement. It took a leap of faith to believe the method would work because it seems like it can't possibly. Luckily the author explains everything in such friendly detail that it becomes easy.