Knitting a True Mobius Scarf

Mobius, also known as mobius strip, mobius band, or mobius loop, was named for German mathematician August Ferdinand Mobius, who while probably not the first to discover it, nonetheless gets the credit for it. It is considered a non-orientable surface because the loop contains a half-twist. Clear as mud? Me too, but it's fun to knit, even if it's a bit baffling. Maybe explaining why I'm calling it a "true" mobius will help. 

Some instructions for making a mobius scarf say to knit or crochet a regular rectangular scarf, bind it off, give one end a half-twist, and then sew the two ends together to make a loop. A "true" mobius, on the other hand, knits the half twist into the scarf. After it's cast on, you start knitting and keep going. No beginning and endings; no rows to count. By the time you get to where you started, you've knit both edges of the scarf. So, you just keep knitting and knitting until you decide it's wide enough. Then bind off and it's done. 

For my scarf, I found a lovely yarn in my stash that I was fortunate to receive from someone else's stash remnants purge. The yarn is beautiful and I thought would make a perfect winter scarf.

A lovely space-dyed mohair wool blend worsted single yarn.

The pattern I used was "Knoop" from Knitty.com. The tricky part is the circular needle cast-on because both edges of the scarf are cast on simultaneously. For that, I found Cat Bordhi's wonderful video, Intro to Moebius Knitting.  Since size was arbitrary, I used US8 needles, as recommended on the yarn wrapper. 

Once I got the first couple of rows under my belt, it was easy after that. The amazing thing is, you're knitting both long edges of the scarf as you knit around the circle.

A stitch marker helps keep track of when the circle is complete.

Since there's no official beginning and end to the scarf, it's knit for whatever width is desired.

Casting off

Now you can see the knit in half-twist. 

This makes a fantastic winter scarf doubled, because there are no ends to flop around and fall off your shoulder!

The wool-mohair blend was wonderfully warm. One loop can be worn over the head, with the other around the neck. A shorter mobius could be worn as a cowl. There are a lot of possibilities for how to wear a mobius scarf. 

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