Mobius Cowl

I finished something today.

I have this tendency to have several projects underway at any given time. If I don't feel like working on a particular one, then I can choose to work on this, that or the other one. I like the variety, but it also means that actually completing something takes longer.

I'm not sure how long I've been working on the Mobius cowl, but I'm guessing it's been since about the beginning of summer. One reason it took me so long to make it has been that I would do only one round at a time. Sometimes even less. It was something I would do to fill a few minutes before it was time to go somewhere, or I would try to do one round in the morning after breakfast.

Each round is 136 stitches, and it took 10 to 15 minutes to complete one round. (There is also a shorter Mobius cowl pattern by the same designer, where you cast on only 46 or 50 stitches).

It's based on this pattern, but instead I used the Spud and Chloe yarn I'd used in an attempt to make a scarf of my own design, which just wasn't working. I also used 9mm circular needles, which is what I already happened to have (and is close enough to the 8mm needles called for in the pattern).

And I knit more rounds than called for in the pattern, because I wanted to use all the yarn I could. It worked out just about right. Since I was pulling the yarn off the other already-knit scarf, rather than out of a skein, when I got toward the end I calculated approximately how many rows of the old scarf when into one round on the cowl and planned accordingly.

When my bind-off was complete, there were maybe 3 or so rows left in the old scarf.

Other Mobius cowl patterns are knit flat, and then you sew together the ends. But I knew I wanted something seamless.

The instructions direct you to an online tutorial showing the Mobius cast-on. I watched it through once, and then again while I did the cast-on.

(Nearly) Mindless Knitting

Sometimes, I need some knitting that I don’t need to think much about while I’m working on it. The most mindless knitting would be a garter stitch scarf, and I admit I made a few of those when I first began knitting. But I don’t really like garter stitch.

The next most mindless knitting would be alternative rows of stockinette and purl, but that rolls under at the edges. I think there is a way to avoid that, but I’m not sure what it is.

So what I like to do is what’s called a mistake rib. I think there are one or two other names for it, but when I came across it the first time, that is what it was called, so that’s what I call it. It's a 3-stitch repeat of K2P1, back and forth.

This scarf is made from a yummy worsted yarn from Malabrigo called 176 Loro Barranquero. Pure merino wool. Very soft. The kind of yarn you see yarn shop customers caressing.

I don’t know when it will be completed; I don’t work on it very often. And it’s not completely mindless. I do have to pay a little bit of attention or I do something like make a an extra knit stitch and don’t realize my mistake until the end of the row when I only have two stitches left when I should have three for the K2P1. Fortunately, the rows are quite short so the ”unknitting” isn’t too hard to do.