Jenny’s Something New

Writing up this “Something New” on my moebius scarf has taken much longer than actually knitting it! I first became interested in knitting a moebius scarf back in March. I should probably explain what a moebius is. A moebius strip is a band or surface with only one side and one boundary edge. Clear as mud huh? Take a strip of paper. Give it a half-twist (turn one end over) then tape the ends together. That’s a moebius strip. Draw a line down the middle of one side. If you’ve done it right, your line will go all the way down one “side”, then back down the other “side” and you’ll come back to where you started, but have a line on both sides of the paper. If you were to cut the strip down this line, you don’t end up with two pieces of paper; you end up with a loop twice as long with a full twist in it.

So why knit a moebius scarf? Well it doesn’t have ends that flop around and get in the way or need tucking into a coat, and, as its circular, it will wear evenly. The half-twist gives it a nice drape. A full twist doesn’t sit nicely. And it’s fun when you inevitably have to explain to someone what you’re knitting (or have knit) and you watch their brain go into meltdown…

My moebius scarf was based on a Cat Bordhi pattern, the Cashmere Moebius Cowl. The yarn was a Touch 4 ply merino in a variegated purple/green/black. The needles were 4 mm 150 cm Addi Turbo circulars I bought over the internet from Yarns Galore in Western Australia, but you can now get Addi Turbos from the Wool Room in Uralla and Nicola is happy to order sizes in. I made a tactical error with the needle length and really should have used 120 cm circulars. The needle needs to be long enough to hold all the stitches along the boundary edge but not so long that the knitting has to be stretched. And I hadn’t wanted to go too short (take a pair of 80 cm circulars and make it form two loops then consider knitting something like that – no thanks!). As the boundary edge goes around the scarf twice, my 150 cm needles forced me to knit a scarf with at least a 75 cm circumference. So I had something like 180 stitches to cast on once I worked out a gauge from a tension swatch (which, because it is double sided, gives 360 stitches).

The cast on is double sided and runs down the centre of the moebius. It’s like a long tail cast on but uses the circular needle as the long tail. I used instructions from The Girl From Auntie and an instructional video (note: 6.7 MB file) but there is now Cat Bordhi’s demonstration available (still about 5 MB). My moebius had a diagonal pattern, which ends up making chevrons. The easiest way to understand it all is not to think too much about it and just do it!

Above: During knitting – the cable part of the circular needle holds the stitches on the bottom of the knitting, the tail of yarn from casting on comes off the middle of the knitting on the right and a stitch marker is needed to tell when a round is complete (since you come past that tail twice in a round).

The first half-round is a pain in the butt to knit because the stitches are tight and have to be un-twisted. But after that it was really easy to knit. I started it in late July and finished it in mid August so it took about three weeks. And it was school term time so I didn’t spend a lot of time knitting. After finishing and washing it, the yarn relaxed much more than I expected, so rather than going twice around my neck it goes three times. But it is very cosy.

If I was going to do it again (and I intend to) then I would use a bulkier yarn (the 4 ply is too flimsy), 120 cm circulars and a different stitch pattern – stocking stitch alternating with reverse stocking stitch (just turn the knitting inside out and knit in the reverse direction – no need to purl). With fewer stitches, it would be a really quick knit.