Fractals are mathematical objects that look the same (are self-similar) as you zoom in on them over and over again. In fact, you can keep zooming infinitely and keep encountering the same pattern. A famous fractal called the Menger sponge was discovered in 1926 by an Austrian-American mathematician named Karl Menger. In the photo, I am holding a Menger sponge that I made out of business cards and wearing a crocheted cuff featuring the Menger carpet.

Pattern Notes:
I made this cuff from an abandoned project in which I had started to make a Menger carpet (a 2-dimensional version of the Menger sponge) from crochet squares. However, I only made 9 squares and didn’t record how I made them. I never sewed them together because the resulting carpet was very small and underwhelming, and given the nature of fractals, it would have taken a lot of yarn and a lot of time to make the next level up. So, one day when I needed a maths-y cuff to wear, I sewed 4 of the squares together with a improvised joining stitch and the Menger cuff was born.