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]

Knit Toys Made Out of Squares

Halloween Toys to Knit

One of the fun things about knitters is that we will use a holiday theme on any kind of project. From Easter bunny socks to Christmas sweaters, there’s no combination of holiday motif and knitwear genre we won’t combine.

Case in point: Halloween cowls.

This fun cowl from Sweet Vireo Designs features large carved pumpkins and little cats and skulls. It uses two colors of DK weight yarn and I love the multicolored yarn for the background color on this one. And the braids! So cute.

Spooky Season by Jocelyn Tunney (also on Ravelry) uses fingering weight yarn in two colors to make a design with crescent moons and eyes. There are two circumferences and two heights available so you can make it a neck hugger or a slightly bigger project if you like.

Make more moons with the Broom Riding Cowl from Vanessa Ewing Knits. This two color pattern looks extra fun with a multicolored yarn for the colorwork, but you can use a solid as well. It calls for DK weight yarn but there is also a fingering weight version if you have some yarn in your stash you want to use.

Jinx Made has another fun Halloween cowl, this time covered in skulls. South Philly Skulls uses DK weight yarn and comes in two lengths, and there’s also a matching hat pattern, both of which can be found on Ravelry.

The Ghost Stories cowl from Melissa Knit Wear is a two-color cowl with ghosts of different sizes on the body. It uses DK weight yarn, and average sized skeins will allow you to get two cowls out of two skeins. It also calls for stitch markers to help you keep your place in the chart.

Or stitch up a cowl with a giant bat on it. The Nightling Cowl from Jen Immer uses DK weight yarn in two colors and has moons and a large bat on it. This pattern can be found on Ravelry.

How about spooky trees? The Weirwood Cowl from Andrea Krüß-Anders is inspired by the weirwood trees in the Game of Thrones books, and is worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn. You can find this free pattern on Ravelry.

If a bandana cowl is more your thing, try Cowloween from Tellybean Knits (on Ravelry). This colorful design is worked from the top down and features pumpkins, ghosts and candy colored stripes, and is worked in a light fingering weight yarn. There are kid and adult sizes available.

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