Grace and I have been chatting over the past week on making mobius strips. Searching on the web on mobius strips, I found that there are quite a few directions for making mobius strips. Some are done by making a long strip, then grafting the start and end together after making a half twist. Some are done with that funky “knit into the bottom of the stitch” business that had always made my eyes crossed thinking about it. Then, there are the misnomers.
The last category is when you accidently put a twist in the cast on, when you are connecting it in a round. I’ve seen various places where people call it a mobius. It’s not. It’s just a full twist mistake.
First, let’s go back to the definition of a mobius. The mobius strip only has one edge and one surface.
Exercise #1:
- take a long strip of paper
- pull the ends together to form a loop (as you would when you make a paper chain)
- turn one end one half turn
- tape the ends together
What you have now has one edge and one surface. This is a mobius strip. The coolest and simplest 2 dimensional object in the world. Nay, universe. This is the first method for knitting a mobius scarf described in the first paragraph.
Exercise #2: Okay, let’s do another experiment.
- take a long strip of paper
- pull the ends together to form a loop
- turn one end a full turn
- tape the ends together.
Can you see the difference? The second loop has 2 edges and 2 surfaces. This is not a mobius strip. This is what happens when you accidently join your circular knitting with a single twist in the cast on.
Let’s take a look at this in terms of knitted fabric. Follow the link for the pictorial on knitting a mobius. I’ve moved it so that you don’t have to take a nap while waiting for this page to load unless you really, really want to see how I did it.
It was a beautiful day yesterday (70F +), so I took my spinning wheel outside and played for a bit. Every once in a while, a male