twisty turny: the crocheted mobius

Years and years ago I knit one of those mobius cowls for a friend, using the mind-boggling mobius cast on. What a mental exercise that was! I enjoyed it, but it was tricky. So imagine my surprise when I came across this tutorial on craftzine for a crocheted mobius, and saw how much easier that was. Using the tutorial as a jumping off point, I worked up a couple mobius cowls for a fun little class at Loopy. I ended up doing something slightly different from the Craft tutorial, but the end result is so similar that I don't plan on writing up my "design" when the finished product is nearly identical to something that's already out there. The basic idea of what I did was so make a chain about as long as I wanted my mobius to be (using worsted weight yarn and a J hook, I made a couple cowls starting out with about 150 chains). I laid out my chain in front of me and gave it a half twist, so I could join into the round and stitch my first round into the bumps on the back of my chain. When I got back to where I had started, I continued on the other side by working into the Vs of that initial chain. Like magic, once you've worked around both sides of your chain you're making a mobius, and all you have to do is keep crocheting until it's as wide as you want it to be.

Like the craftzine tutorial, I used half double crochets, but that's just because it's my favorite basic crochet stitch. You could work singles, doubles, whatever. I did not, however, work only into the back loops as she does. I just don't like the way that looks. Finally, it is worth noting that when you crochet a mobius in this way, your starting chain ends up running along the center of the finished piece. Be careful to keep that chain nice and loose because of this! You don't want the center of your piece to feel tight, or even worse - pull the finished piece in so it ripples. I tried to get around this issue by starting with a foundation half double crochet, which gives you a foundation chain and a row of stitches all at once, and is extremely stretchy. This didn't work, however, because I ended up with a hole in the middle of my first round where I switched to stitching on the other side of the foundation.

I'm thrilled with the final product! It's a super fun and easy project; so much easier than making a knit mobius. I used 2 skeins of madelinetosh tosh vintage, but of course any yarn would work. I've always loved the way this yarn looks in crochet, so it was great to finally get a chance to work with it. I've got two classes scheduled at Loopy for this project, and the first one is THIS THURSDAY 6:30-8:30! But if you can't get signed up for that in time (oops, last minute PR attempt here) there will be another round on August 1.