Selling a crochet stuffed toy and art doll on eBay is difficult, and I am going to guess the same holds true for any other e-commerce platform. The market is flooded with them. Cute, standard stuffies, worked up from a pattern somewhere. Still, I like the whimsy of it all.
I decided that I wanted to offer a few amigurumi stuffed toys of my own. I started out with a couple of turtles. Turtles have a personal meaning to me—my granddaughter’s nickname is “Turtle.” I even sold “Harry, the Dabber Turtle,” while my other turtle has been waiting for adoption for the last two months now.
The point is that in the world of the crochet toy and art doll, turtles are a dime a dozen. Meaning it’s one of those motifs that have been done a million times over. It is, in other words, “generic.”
So I thought, let’s try to crochet a dragon. That’s a bit higher stakes. A bit more unusual. And that is where it all began.
The crochet stuffed toy and art doll who refused to turn into a dragon!
Now, if you have followed my blog, you know by now that patterns (unless I create them myself) and I are not friends. I can read them, but I just can’t seem to follow them.
That said, I purchased a pattern to crochet a dragon. I should have saved my few pennies, because trying to follow it turned into an exercise of pure futility very quickly. If it would have been written on paper rather than on a PDF stored on my laptop, I would have thrown it out of the window within the first hour.
Everything about it was wrong. Not just the way it began to look, but the way it felt. Something inside of me was actively fighting me crocheting a dragon stuffy. I got the body done and it was just a little too round. I got the head done (no snout yet), and it was too small for the body. I looked at it, and went—yeah, this will never be a dragon! It’s too soft, too rounded, the proportions don’t fit together. I even cracked a bad joke and said, “Oh, look at you, you have a big round belly like me!”
This crochet stuffed toy and art doll was starting to mirror what I was feeling about myself inside. In my mind, I saw it taking a very different shape. A different reason for becoming. There was a strange comfort in creating this beginning of a misfit crochet toy and art doll. Hours passed, and I mean many hours. I ran out of one yarn and had to incorporate another. I switched stitches and movements in how I was crocheting (which is a form of hand weaving if you think about it), and everything I had pictured in the beginning was now morphing and transforming into something completely different.
I was joking that my new crochet stuffed toy and art doll was suffering from enforced body dysmorphia. Not unlike many humans out there. Even myself, who when looking in the mirror now in my 50s, at times is having problems recognizing my body. Yes, we more mature people go through body dysmorphia too.
My shy little monster crochet stuffed toy and art doll is born!
Somewhere at the midpoint of creation, roughly 10 hours in, I had to make a choice. Was I going to simply give up and unravel it all, or was I going to see where my hands, my yarn, my hook, and frankly, this determined little creature were taking me?
To be honest, the more of a misfit toy it became, the more protective I started feeling about it. There was a voice inside of me that shouted: My little monster has a right to become exactly what it is meant to be! Who am I to reject it or try to cancel it out, just because it doesn’t fit with all of the other standard crochet toy and art doll groups?
As I finished sewing the head on, I made another minor mistake, and now the head is turned slightly to the side. It gave him (and I don’t know why I feel it is a him, but it is) a sweetly shy appearance. That was the moment I understood.
This adorably gone wrong crochet toy and art doll was becoming “my shy little monster.” Wings that look like they were broken several times and mended with nothing but sheer determination and grit (in truth, just a bunch of different stitches I was experimenting with), and would never be able to carry him in flight, came next. A much too big snout—and who knows why I decided to crochet it to look open—followed. Again, I ran out of yarn after I added the chubby short arms and legs to it. So now I needed to use a different color palette to add the tail and spikes up the back of his body.
Big, almost bug-like green eyes gave my shy little monster sight. It was close to being finished, and I suddenly realized just how much I really liked him. He isn’t beautiful or glamorous. He is far from what most humans would even look at twice, but he has charm, personality, and soul.
As I told one of my daughters, “My shy little monster, in a very strange way, is a representation of what I have been feeling about myself for a long while now. Ever since I had to have the surgery and started having all those physical problems. The way my body changed, and the way I feel inside, etc.”
My shy little monster, this accidental misfit creation of a crochet stuffed toy and art doll, gave visual voice to an inner dialogue I, and millions of humans out there, are having with themselves in the quiet dark hours when nobody is around.
Rasmussdazz—and his purpose is told in a mini-story
I call naming my creations giving them the breath of life. Now, since I do create them in order to support myself via their sales, it is perhaps just a temporary name, but that is alright. No child—not even a creative one—should go into the world to find its new friends and home without the creator loving it enough to at least name it first.
The night I had my sweet shy little monster crochet toy and art doll—now named Rassmusdazz—finished and tucked into his safe space, I had a dream of a child with some sort of mental illness holding him tight and loving on him. I say it was a child, but it could have been an adult who had a childlike appearance or behaviors. In my dream, I saw Rassmusdazz telling his new friend a story in a language only those who still have magic and wonder in them can hear and understand. My dream showed me what my shy little monster’s purpose was and why I had to create him.
Let me share the mini-story with you now!
My shy little Monster’s purpose! A mini-fictional story!
“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to disappoint you!” A sweet small voice came from just behind my bedroom window curtains. “I tried, I really tried, you know?” the voice continued on, interrupted by a hiccupping sort of sob.
I sat on my bed, the moon outside my window shining in, and for the dozenth time that evening tried to console my shy little monster.
“Rassmusdazz, buddy, you do know that it was my fault and not yours that you didn’t turn into a fierce dragon, right? If anyone has a reason to be disappointed in anyone, it would be you being disappointed in me. I guess I just didn’t have a dragon in me, or maybe, just maybe, my shy little monster, there was something in me that just knew that the world is filled with enough dragons, but not enough adorable little monsters.” I kept my voice calm. I chuckled, not for the first time that night. “You know, if anyone was to see us like this, me talking to a stuffy, they would think I am going crazy.”
An adorable crochet head with a snout that looks just a little too puffy, and big green eyes peeked out behind the curtain. “No, don’t say something like that about yourself! I will not hear that. You are perfectly imperfect, and you didn’t give up on me. You created me, you know? You could have just undone me, but here you were, cuddling me close as you gave me my stuffing, and promised me that I would have a purpose. Doesn’t sound insane to me!” Rassmusdazz sounded as fiercely protective as a shy little monster dares to be.
You see, that is the thing about that shy little monster—he may suffer from a bit of social anxiety, and he may even realize that most humans wouldn’t see him as beautiful, but when it comes to his human companion, he was fiercer than any dragon ever would wish to be. Made up of many different yarns, crocheted and stitched together with sheer tenaciousness, he has the soul of someone who understands just how much we beings need to be seen sometimes.
I stood, walked over to him, and picked him up in my arms. I dropped a kiss on his snout and I swear he smiled shyly. “You do have a purpose, my shy little monster. An important one, but I fear it might take some time before just the right person will come across you. You aren’t for just anyone, you know?” I reminded him, as I carried him over to the bed and let him rest on my lap.
“Remind me, Regina. What is my purpose? I so love hearing that someone like me can have a purpose in this world,” the shy little monster whispered, and looked at me as best as he could.
“Sweetheart, we all have a purpose. We all matter; every soul is born into the world with a mission. Sadly, most humans never discover what theirs is. For you, my sweet shy little monster, it is easier so. I am here to tell you what I knew the moment you were finished and I gave you the kiss of life.
You are meant to be the companion for someone who is lonely and just maybe, like yourself, doesn’t fit the norm of what people praise for all the wrong reasons. Someone who needs to be reminded that beauty can be found in mismatched parts. Or someone who is painfully shy, like yourself, and needs someone who will be by their side no matter what. Maybe it’ll be a child suffering with some form of mental illness or an adult who feels themselves trapped in body dysmorphia. Someone who, like you or like me, is perfectly imperfect, and has the right type of heart to recognize the soul in you and the true beauty that comes from within. And you, my sweet little monster, your purpose is to be a companion to someone like that. A comfort when fear, confusion, and loneliness sets in. A reminder that being different doesn’t mean having no value.
I put my tenaciousness into you. I gifted you with the ability to see beyond your puffy snout nose, and I know that you’ll be a “service plushy” to the right soul that is silently screaming to find another soul to accept him or her or them exactly as they are.
That, my little friend, that is your purpose,” I reminded him, and watched as he drifted off into sweet crochet art doll plushy dreams of his new friend and home to come.
And I? Well, I learned something important, and that is that there are enough beings in this world that pretend to be perfect and glamorous. I think I’ll just stick with creating a sweet hot little mess of a companion for a soul who needs to feel a kinship with the doll that will rest next to them.
My shy little monster is now looking for his new home and to serve his purpose!
Yesterday, I listed him on eBay, and there is a bit of sweet sadness attached to it. I know that in order to fulfill his purpose, he has to go out into the world. I know that it might take some time for him to find his new friend and become a service stuffy to someone who just wants to be loved exactly as they are.
I even know that at the price I listed him under ($50 including S&H—USA domestic), it will take a while to find him a home. Most people are bargain hunters and truly don’t value handcrafted items any longer. But he is not just a crochet stuffed toy and art doll; he has his own story, his own bit of handcrafted soul. I want him to go to someone who will value him, who will love him, and who will be happy when holding him close. Nothing free or cheaply given, where no effort had to be made to gain it, is ever truly valued. I learned that one the hard way, too.
If you would like to bring him home, you can find him in my eBay store, along with all the other wonderful handmade treasures looking for a good home.
I don’t like saying, “Go buy one of them,” so instead I’ll say: “Go and put your money where your heart is, and adopt something unique and handcrafted. I promise each piece carries a bit of my own heartbeat in it, and a blessing for you!”
My eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/reginacreates
As always, thank you for visiting with me and spending some time reading my posts. I wish you a fabulous weekend, filled with love, joy, and many blessings!
Artisan Regina L.
