Moebius – Infinity Scarf – Figure 8 – whatever you may want to call it, the Moebius is a mathematical conundrum that has fascinated people for ages. What is it? Well, if you take a piece of ribbon about a foot long, give one end of it a 180° twist, and then join the two ends, you’ll have a Moebius strip. It has no beginning, and no ending. It looks like this. ∞ Or this, if you want a bigger picture …
The infinity symbol shows up all over the place, most notably in mathematics. Seeing as it is such a prevalent symbol in mathematics, it’s no surprise that it also shows up in knitting! As a matter of fact, knitters have been making the moebius strip for ages, sometimes accidentally! What do I mean by that? Well, remember when you first learned to knit in the round using circular needles? If you look back at the instructions, you’ll notice that when joining the first round it said to be careful not to twist the stitches. You may have wondered what that meant. When you twist the join, you end up with a moebius strip. Ironically, when you do it accidentally, it’s usually a little frustrating and you’ll end up frogging it almost every time. Luckily, somebody decided to keep on knitting it and today we know how to make a moebius strip whenever we want!
But what’s the point of making one of these and is there an easier way to do it than to intentionally twist our stitches in the round? Well, the answer to the first question is that it seems that a large moebius strip is all the rage these days in the form of what is commonly called an infinity scarf. A little more on that shortly. As for the second part, yes! Thanks to the evolution of knitting techniques, there is a great cast-on method for a moebius strip that makes making one of these much easier than it has been in the past. Here is a video of Cat Bordhi showing you the easiest technique that I have seen.
Once you’ve mastered this cast on, you’ll find knitting a moebius much easier. But I’m sure you’re wondering what to expect when you knit something. Well, the fact that the moebius has a twist actually adds quite a bit of versatility to things made like this. If you think about a long, slim scarf, the natural tendency is to wrap it around your neck a few times and wear it like a cowl. With an infinity scarf, you already have the twist which makes wrapping it around your neck a natural thing to do. All you have to do is cast on more stitches to increase the length of the scarf. I’m going to do a few posts about the moebius and we’ll discover some secrets and tips about it together. In the meantime, try the cast on above and knit a few rows to see what happens. Here’s a quick look at what you can expect to come up with …
As you probably expected, there’s more to this than meets the eye. Pick a point on the edge and see if you can loop around it one complete time! We’ll be back with more about the moebius soon!
Hugzzz 😎