Saturday, October 15, 2011

My first Moebius Cowl

A couple weeks ago on Monday I visited one of the shops that is selling my glove patterns and the owner requested I design a cowl pattern to match one of them. On Tuesday I went to another shop that is also selling my glove patterns. When I told that shop owner about the first one wanting a cowl pattern, this one said make it a moebius cowl. Well, I had never tried the moebius cast on but Sandy assured me with this video I could master it. I was then in Rockwood with no internet service, so I went to McDonald's with computer (on the way to yet another yarn store, that carries my patterns) and needles in hand and sat and watched the video.

I took the lace portion of my "Ruffled Cuff Eyelet Fingerless Gloves" pattern and I designed and charted and wrote the pattern for it to be a moebius cowl. The glove shown is the sample I knitted for the Smoky Mountain Spinnery in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was knit using Alpaca Sox by Classic Elite Yarn.


The Moebius Cowl is knit using Berroco's "Ultra Alpaca Fine". Both are fingering weight alpaca blends. Notice in the glove the line down the middle, it is purl stitches that kind of stretch as you put it on your hand. With the moebius, there is nothing to stretch it, so it creates a little bit of a puffiness.


I finished knitting late Friday evening, really did not know what I thought of the puffiness of it, but I posted the above photograph to Facebook, stating that I had designed and knit it that week. Within half hour it had been bought, paid for (through Paypal) and packaged up to mail.



So I decided to knit another one. I learned something else knitting the second one. I knitted this one with Cascade Heritage ( 75% Merino/ 25% Nylon). Look at the difference in the length of the one knit using the Merino instead of the Alpaca. The Merino measures 28 inches. I had added 9 stitches to the moebius cast on, which really adds 18 stitches) but I was knitting with #5 needles, so it should not have added 6 inches to the length. I learned the Merino is just too relaxed for this pattern. I am going to knit another one with the Alpaca yarn (maybe even another brand) with the added stitches and see what happens.


Oh, and the one that bought the white one is one of my first blogging buddies. Jen, from Unglazed. She doesn't blog much anymore, but she has friended me on FB. I actually think she was the very first blogger to purchase my photographs, several years ago.

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