Mazzles is a homemade stuffed animal. Crudely sewn out of gray felt, he has two simple bulbous heads. Mazzles has no legs, but lucky for him, he has four feet, and each foot has a face. Thanks to the new crafting movement, exotic mutations like Mazzles have infiltrated the toy scene, introducing unprecedented biodiversity into the world of stuffed animals. Felt robots. Siamese rabbits. Monstrous Easter eggs. One-eyed blobs in desperate need of orthodontics.
Such toys have crawled into our houses from neither zoo nor rain forest, but from the world of digital drawing, whose vectored shapes, fierce colors, and permanent states of emergency nurture graphic violence, or just plain graphics, in innocent toys. Yet the viciousness is only fuzz-deep. Although you can encounter some genuinely mean toys out there, even the most befanged creature has incisors made of felt. There is something vegetarian, even vegetal, about these tiny pillows of eyeballed fabric. Behind every stuffed lightning bolt key chain lies a baby carrot just waiting to be loved.
Mazzles’ heads and feet are actually pseudopods, amorphous projections of felt that protrude gently from his shapeless body. Toys like Mazzles are more akin to the primitive life-forms of the larva, the tumor, and the microbe than to the more advanced evolutionary states marked by the puggle or your local state representative. In the new culture of toys, Bambi doesn’t meet Godzilla. Instead, Bambi turns into an ameoba. The new stuffies reveal the truth about plushies: whatever their proclaimed species, at heart, they’re always invertebrates.
Mazzles lives online, where his designer, “maz78,” has posted him on Craftster.org. Mazzles is not for sale. Rather, both creature and creator are part of a growing online community of amateur toy-makers who share, swap, and sometimes sell their stuffies to each other, and to the occasional toyeur like me. Although Mazzles is sweetly primitive, many of these toys are quite sophisticated. On CustomToyLab. com, contributors offer their wares as prototypes for future product lines. There is only one Mazzles, but his digital nest allows monster lovers anywhere to appreciate his fuzzy charm, share his picture with their friends, and even try making one for themselves.
There is a politics to these toys. Each hand-sewn, two-headed rabid squirrel stages a miniature protest against child labor, mass media, meat-eating, global warming, and the terrible indignity of not being able to move out of your parents’ house. The affection for malformed creatures gives a new face (or two, or three) to those D.I.Y. artists who might feel a bit misshapen themselves. Making your own monsters may be a way of remaking your self, and crocheting a community in the process.
Can the digital generation save the world one radioactive octopus at a time? Probably not. Sewing your own monster iPod cozy out of felt made in China hardly solves the global labor problem. Moreover, the contemporary mass market sucks up emergent ideas like a giant green slime mold sewn out of polar fleece. I recently bought a one-eyed blob stuffie at an airport Starbucks; critters like Mazzles have mutated into the mainstream.
Although toys can’t repair the damage done by grown-ups, it may well be that never before in human history have personal choices (what to buy, what to wear, what to eat, what to make, what to throw away) carried such potential impact. Each mouse click is like the flap of an embroidered butterfly wing. Although these new plushies will cost you more than a teddy bear at Target, consider adopting a monster next time you need a baby gift or a graduation present. You’ll earn points for hipness, and you’ll be supporting underground designers. Better yet, make one yourself. With your slimy misfit friends. JL
POLYPHEMOS IN FLEECE This one-eyed monster was created by Jennifer Bennett Gubicza, a graphic designer turned indie toy maker.
Along with mutant veggie dogs, robotic penguins, and great striped sharks, the crafting movement is spawning a multitude of business models for crafters with their bug-eyes fixed on the long tail market.
THE CRAFTISTA This hipster hocks one-of-a-kind critters on Etsy.com.
By reading articles on Etsy on topics such as “The Art of Pricing,” “The Theory of Discounting.” and “Global Microbrands,” the Craftista can pick up a business education while she’s designing her bottle cap jewelry line.
THE MOMSTER It all begins with a pile of baby booties and the unconditional boredom of infancy. As her kids get walking shoes, Momster’s crafting blossoms into a home-based business, thanks to the digital marketplace and the million tendrils of the mommy blogosphere. Most Momsters are still just earning pin money, though. Meanwhile, a predatory crafting industry enlists mothers in piece work that pays little and can even land them in debt. On the horizon: revenge of the Giant Lactating Squid?
THE SELF-STARTER This savvy seamster has an art school education. She is an artist-entrepreneur who’s not afraid to let her toys grow up. She has a serious day job in the design field, and now she’s using all the marketing skills she learned in the “real world” to build her own toy business, one felt fang at a time.
THE MAINSTREAMER This cross-over artist has managed to migrate his strange stuffies from their subterranean habitat to soap emporia, paperies, museum shops, and even big box stores. Serious training as a designer or illustrator and some connections with the art toy world helped his deviant toys make the evolutionary leap into normalcy.
THE IDENTITY ARTIST This indie toy maker is really a graphic designer in fake fur. She may sell a few toys, but she also markets her design services to small businesses. Her stylized toys sit alongside cards, stationery, and messenger bags (complete with messages). For the Identity Artist, a successful stuffie is simply a brand gone all soft and three-dimensional.
THE GRAPHIC NOVELIST This creator learned his craft writing comic books, and his 3-D critterati flaunt a graphic flattitude. Bright colors, simple frontal designs, and a diminuitive “mascot” size reveal these creatures’ evolutionary path from print into fabric.
THE ORGANIC INTELLECTUAL This provocateur is knitting a brandnew politics out of renewable fibers, recycled silk, and felted sweaters. A passionate blogger, she uses the Internet to build discourses, not sell stuff. Part of the “buy handmade” movement, she’s also not afraid to use the word “theory.” If the Craftista is an avid congregant in the Church of Craft, the Organic Intellectual is one of its high priests and publicists. Together, they’re helping to make craft into the latest religion in America’s historic patchwork of Presbyterian, Unitarian, and vegetarian experiments with civil society.
HALF-MOON MONSTERS
Monsters can be sweet, cuddly, and curious. Kids ages seven and up as well as multi-thumbed adults can easily design and sew these misfit creatures, each made from a circle of fabric folded in half. See how many different life-forms you can make from one basic pierogi shape. Treat your half moon as a face or a fishy body. Try turning it upside down for a view from the bottom. Before you sew the sides together, add a few eyes and a mouth. To amp up the wow! factor, attach tentacles, fins, or a tail.
SUPPLIES
fleece or felt
scissors, needle, thread
buttons or puff balls for eyes
yarn, pipe cleaners, and other random decorations
stuffing
fleece or felt
scissors, needle, thread
buttons or puff balls for eyes
yarn, pipe cleaners, and other random decorations
stuffing
1. Trace a circle on a piece of felt or fleece.
2. Cut out the circle and fold it in half.
3. Add eyes and other features. You can sew or stick them on with fabric glue or hot glue. Features can also be embroidered using thread, yarn, or embroidery floss.
4. Sew around the curved edge. Use a straight stitch (in and out) or a blanket stitch (loop around the edge). Sew any extra appendages between the two layers as you go.
Add-ons include:
FLOPPY EARS (soft fleece)
HORNS (felt)
ANTENNAE (pipe cleaners)
TAIL (strip of fabric or length of ribbon or yarn)
FINS (triangles of felt or fleece)
KITTY EARS (cut out a triangle and fold the sides in)
TEDDY EARS (pinch the ends of half circle and stitch)
TENTACLES (try knobby multi-colored yarn)
FLOPPY EARS (soft fleece)
HORNS (felt)
ANTENNAE (pipe cleaners)
TAIL (strip of fabric or length of ribbon or yarn)
FINS (triangles of felt or fleece)
KITTY EARS (cut out a triangle and fold the sides in)
TEDDY EARS (pinch the ends of half circle and stitch)
TENTACLES (try knobby multi-colored yarn)
5. Before you get to the end, add stuffing, and then sew shut.
Half-Moon Monsters designed by Izzy, age seven, and Hannah, age eleven.
PIN-CUSHION MONSTERS
Try this variation as well. Make a tiny pillow with a scrap of fabric. Add eyes, tails, limbs and other features to create strange and surprising beings with simple bodies. Pin-cushion monsters designed by Ruby, age nine.
SEX
MOTHERHOOD
