Knitting a rubik's cube

I made this cube for my boyfriend, he's not just good at them; he can solve them one-handed while riding a unicycle, or tackle this kind of thing.

This isn't instructions or a pattern, it's just a blog post about what I did. However, I made it up as I went along, so if you have a little bit of knitting experience, I'm sure you could do the same.

It's not just a dust-gatherer. It does have some other functions, which I'll mention as I go along.

Cotton yarn won't pill or stretch and this particular yarn comes in a selection of nice bright colours. I don't think the type or weight of yarn is important, but as with toys I guess a nice tight gauge is best because you don't want the stuffing to show through. I knit that yarn on 4mm needles.

6 rows by 6 stitches seemed about right, plus a couple of stitches and rows to allow for mattress-stitching. So 8x8. You'll obviously want 9 little squares of each of 6 colours.

That's a lot of tails! Long ones are useful for stitching up. There's no weaving-in because they'll all be lost inside and help to fill the finished item.

It's vital to find a diagram of an actual scrambled cube, or use a real scrambled cube as a guide. If you place the colours randomly, it probably won't be solvable and is the equivalent of giving a musician a card with nonsense musical notes on it. 

I used this online generator for the image above. It's about 25 moves from being solved, but unfortunately I didn't save that solution and it's now lost. But that does give the knitted one another function as a puzzle: find the shortest solution from this state.

As mentioned, I used mattress stitch to sew the small squares into big squares, and then the big squares into the arrangement in the diagram and finally sewed that into the 3D shape, all bar one edge.

Most of the time you're mattress-stitching stitches that go in the same direction, but it's necessary to sew vertical to horizontal along some edges, which is harder to make neat.

I used duplicate stitch to add the black as I went along . 

A lavender bag adds another function. I understand that lavender is also a spider-deterrent, which is yet another function.

I buried the lavender bag in the middle, surrounded by regular toy stuffing and the numerous ends.

Once sewn up, the same duplicate stitch can be used along the edges.

The stuffing wants to push the cube out into a ball. I had  hoped that the stitched edges, and the lack of stretch in the cotton yarn would help hold the cube shape. I packed this in a cube-shaped box in order to help form the cube shape. 

This year his cake was also a cube and featured the same pattern, but without the colours on the bottom side. 

Finished scarf - based on the Snow Queen Snood

My scarf is based on the Snow Queen Snood and in a couple of previous posts I showed the process of making the Zoom Loom squares. The creamy-white is handspun from some fleece which I believe was a gift. The teal is Norfolk Horn from Jenn at fibreworkshop.co.uk that I sent to Freyalyn for dyeing. I made 48 squares altogether which makes a nice large scarf. I chose not to join the ends.

Some of these are two-colour. This turns out to be easy. You usually make four layers with the Zoom Loom so all you need to do is to change colour so that you have 1 and 3 or 2 and 2. I made some squares 1/4 blue and 3/4 white, and some 1/4 white and 3/4 blue. 

I enjoyed cross-stitching the snowflakes using a design I found online. This could have been a little larger but hey. Cross-stitching onto pin-loom squares works extremely well and is something I want to explore further. 

Previously I have made a blanket by crocheting the edges together. This makes quite a heavy join which is effective, but in this case I wanted it to look more continuous and I chose a stitch that's like mattress stitch. 

It was quite puckered after stitching but flattened out after a soak. I didn't go to the trouble of getting out the blocking mat and wires (I was also concerned about pulling loops out all the way around the edge) so I simply pulled it flat and let it dry.  Pressing it flat between two towels (just by walking on it, not using an iron) was very effective at flattening it. 

I haven't (yet) fulled it at all, just soaked it. I do feel that it needs a little more softening so I may give it the 'waulking' treatment to see what happens. I'm also tempted to add a faux fringe.

My stack o'squares is growing

I've been randomly making the blue or white squares to add interest but haven't yet looked into how to make the the two-colour ones or tried stitching the snowflake. 

Hello, old friend

 The title applies to both my spinning wheel and my Zoom Loom. It's been too long since I used either.

I finished spinning the white mystery fleece. It's not as consistent as I'd like and parts of it are a little thin but it's OK and I do have around 200yds which I think is what I need.

I did enjoy doing the longdraw. It's a fast way to spin and when it goes right it's very satisfying and produces a nice bouncy yarn. I began by pulling handfuls from my nests but I found it went better if I took the trouble to pull it out a bit and roll it around a 1" rod to make rolags, then pinch off sections as I spun. 

With the white finished and wound into balls, it was time to reacquaint myself with the Zoom Loom. The instructions are clear but the first square took a little longer than I remembered. However, I did remember to wind the first layers with no tension at all, because the weaving tightens them up and can get difficult when you reach the end. I'm sure I'll get faster at making them, but with 48 to produce, and learning how to use two colours, I won't be wearing my scarf until the Spring!

Back to spinning!

 If you've seen the January '25 issue of HSN then you'll know that I'm quite taken by the Snow Queen Snood.

I'm itching to do some spinning because I've been occupied for months now on a knitting project. It's quite relaxing to do late at night now that I've reached the body, which is long rows of stockinette with a short section of lace at each end. But all the same, it's going to take ages to finish. (Especially if I get distracted by other projects. Monogamous? Me? Never!)

The snood is a Zoom Loom project (or other square pin loom). I'm also keen to use that tool again. It's a quick and fun way to use handspun yarn. 

I had a rummage and found this yarn, left over from my Fulton Shrug. I bought the yarn (undyed) from my friend Jenn at fibreworkshop.co.uk. She studied the Norfolk Horn breed, found local flocks, bought the fleece and had it processed and spun.  It really is beautiful yarn. I asked Freyalyn to dye it for me in teal.  My phone's camera doesn't like the colour and tried to correct it to grey. I've done my best to correct it to something like how it looks in real life.

I also found these nests which are obviously fleece that I've processed myself. I've lost track of where it came from. It may be the last of this fleece but I'm not sure about that. It's not particularly fine and I think it will match the Norfolk Horn quite well if spun to the same thickness. 

I'm not sure whether the quantity I have here is enough. A quick calculation based on 8 yards per Zoom Loom square means that I'll need around 380 yards of yarn altogether (blue and white). I guess I have plenty of the blue, probably not the white. I'll make the yarn and see what I have. It may mean altering the pattern (more of the plain blue squares).

I'm trying to spin longdraw, since the Norfolk Horn yarn is very bouncy. I'm having to pick out some VM as I go.