Ski-mergency Moebius Turtle

When I was heading out the door on my way to a Christmas back-country skiing trip, I had a realization. Although I had spent the last week and some carefully, maybe obsessively preparing my gear (I hadn't yet been on a back-country trip for which I felt fully prepared), and I finally had the important things - weather gear, hattage, glove- and mitten-age, appropriate underwear, All Ten Essentials, everything - I didn't have anything to keep my face and neck warm but a scarf given to me by my dear mother. Not only do I love it too much, I would trip on the ends.

Luckily, I knew just what to make, and I had the perfect materials on hand. So I grabbed them, and I knitted this on the way to Aspen:

This is a moebius! This is what my best friend taught me to make! The yarn is Noro's Kureyon (color 152 for the interested), recently frogged from my unfortunate attempt to be creative with the Matrix mittens from Knitty:

See? not too pretty. If it had just been the colors I might have kept going and hoped for the best, but the gauge was simply too different; even my tiny hand was uncomfortably between the child's and medium sizes.

I'd thought that the two yarns would work well together because of one glorious moment of color harmony, which can be seen (more or less) below.






























I suppose that's because I figured - hey, the colors are the same, and if a color happens within a ball of Kureyon, then it must go with the other colors! Maybe I should mention that I've never knitted with Kureyon before. I liken the experience to reading a book by an author you love, whose writing style you adore, whose characters are fresh and new and compelling, but whose plot you just wish would happen differently with all of your heart. The colors are beautiful; the colors are rather amazing; but I have no idea why they appear together in one ball when the colors so clearly do NOT work that well together.

But for my moebius, it worked very well. It was surprisingly warm, and actually took the place of my hat most days since it better accommodated the strap of my goggles. Hoo-rah!