Starting A Center-Out Mobius
Mary Beth TempleDescription
Mobius Strips are one of those scientific concepts that are difficult to explain, but here in this video, crochet expert Mary Beth Temple shows us how to crochet one! This mind-boggling technique is strangely simple to do, but you really need to watch someone do it to understand how it’s done.
You can use any stitch you want to anchor your mobius. In this video, Mary Beth demonstrates with a double crochet stitch because it is easier to see how it’s done. She begins by making a chain, and then working across the bottom of her chain, and marks the first stitch of her row. In her case, she is counting the turning chain from her foundation chain as the first stitch of the row, so she places a stitch marker in the top of the turning chain. She tells us that if we had started with a row of single crochet stitches, that e would mark the first single crochet of the row.
She brings the first stitch right next to the last stitch worked, then gives the end with the first stitch a 180 degrees twist. Now the stitch marker is on the bottom edge. She anchors her mobius in place by working a slip stitch into the opposite side of that first stitch, into what was once the bottom of the foundation row. This keeps the piece twisted. After the join, she makes a beginning chain and starts working along the same edge. After working all the way around to her stitch marker, she pulls the stitch marker through the center of the piece, and continues stitching by making the next stitch into the marked stitch. This creates the mobius! When you get to the beginning chain, join to the top, and make another beginning chain. You will always end up in the same place after working around and around because it is a mobius.
You can use any kind of stitch to anchor your Mobius that you want, whether it's a single crochet, a half aa double whatever stitch you want. But I'm gonna show you on a double crochet because I think it's easier to see. You also have some choices on how to start. You can either chain and complete your first row like you normally would or you could use foundation stitches if you want. But no matter what you're doing when your first row is complete, this is the only time we're working in a row, we're gonna take a stitch marker and we're going to mark the top of the beginning chain, the turning chain. So if I was doing single crochet, I'd be marking that first stitch the top of it. But because I did double, I'm marking the, the top of that first beginning chain. So now I'm going to set up in the round, but I want to have 100 and 80 degree twist in my work. So normally if I was setting up in the round, I would join like so and I would put my first stitch there in that mark stitch. But I want that twist. So I'm going to turn the work. So I'm going to rotate the work so that I'm working in the bottom of the stitches to begin, not the top. So I'm gonna go ahead and join in the bottom of that beginning chain and then go ahead and work on whatever stitch I'm working on for now, just for the, for the purposes of this demo, I'm just gonna put two doubles in each stitch around. So right now I'm working in the bottom of the stitches of the first row. When I come up to the last stitch where I can work in the bottom of it, that'll be the number of however many stitches that you have completed. Uh Now it, it turns out this has done it for me, but generally speaking, the stitch marker will be on the side that's away from you. You wanna reach through the center opening and pull the stitch marker through. Now, you're not going to join here, you're going to continue the round. So I'm gonna remove that stitch marker and again, for the purposes of my pattern, I'm putting two double crochets in each stitch around. So I'm gonna go ahead and put my two double crochets there and now I'm gonna continue working, but I'm working in the top of the stitches of my row one, not the bottom. We've already completed the bottom. Now we're moving on to the top. Mhm So I'm coming up on the last stitch that I have available to work in the top. And once again, because I've set my twist correctly, my work is helping me out. But even if it's on the other side, what you wanna do at this point is bring the beginning chain of this first round, bring it through the center opening and join in the top of that beginning chain. So now you can see I have my twist set. I have my Mobius twist. And when I'm working subsequent rounds, the round is going to begin and end in the same place. So I'm gonna start here. I'm going to stitch along all these stitches and I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna keep going and look, I'm gonna end my round exactly where I started.
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