Knitting around in Mobius

I watched Cat Bordhi's video about how to cast on for mobius knitting and was both amused and intrigued.  I thought, "that looks particularly easy!"  And it was--to knit.  You know me, I seldom follow a pattern … Well, I probably should have for this project.  It began with a fingering weight wool in a gorgeous blackberry color with little tan and cream specks of color, and I stayed up WAY past my bedtime to finish it, and it turned out to be this piddly little cowl that barely looked like anything and barely fit over my head.  Okay, scrap that one!  So then I picked a different, thicker wool with larger circular needles and cast on twice as many stitches, thinking I would just wind this cowl around my neck twice if it was too big.  Well, it's finished, and it's pretty big.  So big, in fact, that it actually turned out to be a shawl, or as is commonly known among Etsy knitters, a "capelet".

I must say that I am pleasantly surprised and pleased.  I can actually wind this twice about my neck for a very chunky, warm cowl; but I think that I am going to wear it to work today as the shawl.  Lesson #1:  gauge, gauge, gauge!  Lesson #2:  that first row of knitting stitches needs to be tight, tight, tight!  You can see where the pearling meets the knitting … some of the stitches appear a little loose and will have to be adjusted by hand to make them more even.

I can't say that I am as addicted to mobius knitting as Cat said that I would be, but it was pretty fun and I recommend that you try it out and check out her video to learn how. 

As a side note, I used a commercial light worsted weight 70% acrylic/30% alpaca for this project with a total CO of 130 stitches.  The needles were US 11 circular--47 inch cable.  I can't remember the name of the yarn at present--it was something from the stash.  The only downside seems to be that, as a consequence of its being commercially spun, alpaca fibers abound on my clothes as I wear it today.