Tablet Weaving and Ply-Splitting Books, Tools & Kits
Ply-Split Mobius Strip by Linda Hendrickson
This is my first ply-split mobius strip, completed in August 2012. A conversation with a student, Perry Drevo, inspired me to try making one.
I started out with a cardboard model and a 10-yard length of Danish cord (a commercially-made 3-ply paper cord). Then I tried to figure out how to temporarily hold the cord onto the model. Paper clips, binder clips, clothespins, pieces of tape... nothing worked very well. I finally ended up sewing the cord to the cardboard with long basting stitches and 5/2 perle cotton as I split it and pulled crosswise pieces through it.
I attached the cord to the "front" of the strip as I added short crosswise pieces, splitting with 2 plies on top of the gripfid. But "inside", "outside", "front" and "back" are tricky when ply-splitting a mobius strip! Although I always worked on the "front" of the cardboard model, going from the left toward the middle, the cord was also on the "back" of the cardboard, going from the right toward the middle after the first round....oh, my!
Finally, I decided to stop adding the long cord. At that point, I had crosswise pieces going through 4 cords on the "top" and 4 cords on the "bottom" of the cardboard (twice as many crosswise pieces as I actually wanted).
So I started cutting slits in the cardboard and worked on joining all 8 cords. To do this, I would remove 1 crosswise piece from the "bottom" and pull a crosswise piece from the "top" through, so it was splitting 8 cords. I kept cutting out pieces of the cardboard model, and finally removed the sewing stitches. Things didn't quite line up -- there were a few gaps in the cord that I had to fill. I rearranged the splittings a little and put in a few short pieces that made U-turns.
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This page created on September 4, 2012, and updated May 30, 2013.