Cat Bordhi's brain

Mobius Cowl
Originally uploaded by littlekidd

I've had Cat Bordhi's "A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting" for years, but it has taken until now for me to explore the whole mobius thing. My super-brainy brother introduced me to the concept of the Mobius Strip when I was a kid, but the notion of knitting one from the midline out in two directions at once? With right side and wrong side facing you at the same time? Well, that notion made my brain explode a little every time I thought about it.

I ran into Cat Bordhi in an elevator at a knitting conference once. (Well, the knitting conference was actually in a hotel. We never could have fit all those knitters into the elevator.) I had read that Cat Bordhi was as brainy as she is nice. She was my captive for four or five floors down as I gushed aloud about how much I loved her "New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One". After she got off on her floor, I noticed the hair on my arms was standing up, like there was some sort of excessive electrical current in the air in that little elevator box. I'm fully convinced it was the power of Cat Bordhi's brain.

I hadn't thought about that conversation again until just this week. From time to time people come in to Knit on Pearl looking for help with mobius projects. I decided mobius and I needed some quality time together, exploding brain be damned. I pulled out "2nd Treasury" and knit one of those little felted bowls. Score one big point for Cat Bordh's brain.

Then I remembered this lovely free Mobius Cowl pattern she wrote a few years back. I whipped it up in front of the TV last night with a skein of Noro IroI had lying around. Modified a little to account for bigger-than-called-for yarn, and the fact I only had one skein.

Score another one for Cat. Circular mobius knitting is pretty darn cool. How she figured it out is beyond me. But I'm starting to get my brain around how it works. And so far today, nothing has blown up.