Head over to Hippos and Dinosaurs to find out how to make this stationery folio from a placemat. Fill one with paper, pens, and envelopes, and you’ve got a great gift to give! Go to the tutorial.
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Knit Yourself a Puzzle Cube
I say this a lot, but I love it when people knit things that surprise me, make me think or make me laugh. This one kind of does all three! It’s not a new pattern but I think it’s worth taking a look at, and it would be a super fun stash buster to keep on your desk as a fidget.
It’s also a great conversation starter because this is the knit version of the Soma Cube (which also happens to be the name of the pattern), which was invented by Piet Hein in 1936 while he was listening to a lecture about quantum mechanics.
There are seven different pieces of various shapes that can be fitted together to make a cube. But the really cool thing is that there’s not just one way to put it together, there are in fact 240 different solutions! So you or your kids or anyone who happens by can play with it over and over and come up with different ways to make the cube.
It looks like this project is made with worsted weight yarn, though the pattern page on Ravelry actually doesn’t say. It looks like people have used fingering weight, DK and worsted weight yarns, which would make cubes of different sizes but the pieces should fit together all the same. There are even a couple of crochet versions!
I was looking at different projects and one person commented that it’s worthwhile to knit the pieces in the order they are given in the pattern because some of the later pieces are “strange and bewildering.” Which sounds like something I absolutely want to sign up for!
Despite the weird shapes there’s not a whole lot of finishing on each piece. The designers used polystyrene beads to fill their blocks, but you could also cut pieces of foam to fit.
The pattern is available on Ravelry.
[Photo: Pat Ashforth & Steve Plummer]