Meet Cosmo H. Tri-love-a-tops, a friendly, intergalactic monster!

Cosmo came into being as a response to my grieving the loss (and diminishment) of life because of senseless violence all over the world, especially the loss of children’s lives to war everywhere and gun/domestic violence closer to home, including the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Extra special thanks to LMG for encouraging me to “discover” Cosmo :)

I have been particularly inspired by the 600monsters group and their wonderful work. Even though my toy will likely go to a new home via my charitable project here, Cosmo is certainly kin to all the many wonderful monsters being created in that group.

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Construction notes:
Cosmo is knit up at a tight gauge using Comfort DK, all magic loop construction. Horns and body were knit with 3.25mm needles (US3), and arms, base pairs, shoulder caps, hands, and thumblets were knit with 2.5mm (US 1.5) needles. Comfort makes a nice fabric but seems a bit prone to pilling and, while working, a little splitty (although that may be much less noticeable working it at its proper needle size).

Each component of the appendages was knit in the round (magic loop) and then stuffed with tiny bits of polyfill and much determination (and possibly some swearing like a sailor). The construction of all these bits into their proper shape was incredibly fiddly and time consuming. However, I’m not sure there is a way around that in order to achieve the desired results, which I admit are quite pleasing. The head, body and legs were knit seamlessly from the top, so that did help offset the crazed final making up. Cosmo’s “sweater” reminds me of Charlie Brown’s zigzaggy shirt, and I used one of Barbara Walker’s mosaic designs and inserted it into the body knitting rounds.

I used cheapie felt for the eyes and lips/mouth and embroidered them onto Cosmo’s face with yarn and thread. I made tiny stuffie hearts with the red felt for the central “base pair” for each DNA arm. If you read Cosmo’s story (in the images, or below), you’ll see what that means. :)

I hand-sewed a tiny faux bowtie for Cosmo (fabric cut on the bias, of course) out of some nice printed fine cotton. The design printed on the fabric reminded me of a twilight sky filled with stars and planetary thingummies.

Cosmo stands about 15” tall from tips of horns to feet, and has a very cute little pot-belly and tushie, formed with some strategically placed extra polyfill.

Although I’m not sure I can make another one right away, I love everything about Cosmo!

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(text of Cosmo’s story, since the photo is a bit hard to read)

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A short interview with a friendly, intergalactic monster

Hi! What’s your name?
Hullo! My name is Cosmo H. Tri-love-a-tops, but you may call me Cosmo.

Welcome, Cosmo! Where do you live?
Let’s see, using your earthling terminology, I live in the Huygens Ringlet, which is located within the Cassini Division, which you see as that big gap in Saturn’s rings. Our names are different, of course, but not so easy to translate to your language.

Wow - you have come a very long way. Do you have a special reason for visiting us?
Yes - we know that life has ups and downs everywhere, but recently, it seemed that we heard the tears and heartbreak of your world’s children, echoing even more loudly through the galaxy, and we wanted to comfort you. We thought that earthlings of all ages could use a hug and a reminder to be kind to one another, and so we bring a special delivery of love from all the stars of the universe.

We believe that peace, love, patience, and kindness are the answer and we hope that our gift will help you remember it, too. As you can see, we are built a bit differently than you: where you have “arms”, we have what you’d probably call “noodly appendages”. But if you look closely, you’ll see that each of my arms is a double-helix; that’s right, we are built from a kind of DNA, too! Can you see the hearts in the middle of each helix? We proudly “wear our hearts on our sleeves” (although I believe some humans use this phrase to insult other humans, which makes no sense to us). You see, in our genetic makeup, LOVE is the fundamental building block of our form of life. Love is our prime directive and love informs all that we do and believe and how we treat one another.

That’s amazing, Cosmo! You are very wise for one who looks so young…how old are you?
Hmm, well, we do not count time like humans do, so I am not able to easily interpolate a “number” for you, but you would consider us all “reallllllllllly old”! We live fully in the present moment, but because we hold all time in our consciousness, we also do not “forget” or need to “remember” and so all that we have learned remains fresh in our minds and hearts as a guide to live with compassion.

That is very inspiring and I wish we were better at remembering lessons learned from our past mistakes and also remembering our interconnectedness. Oh, hang on…..we have a write-in question here, if you’re willing to answer it: “Er…you seem to have a boy’s name but you kind of look like a girl???”
((giggles)) Ah yes, you earthlings are known throughout the galaxies for your attachment to binary thinking…but you are still a (relatively) young species and we understand that you are still learning. Well, we do not classify creatures, ideas, and things in the same way that you currently do(on/off, yes/no, this/that). Our way of understanding the universe is what your scientific humans might call multivalent, n-dimensional, or even infinite-dimensional. So yours is a question that makes little sense in our world, and my guess is that you would probably classify us with a label like “of indeterminate gender” since you are not yet comfortable with things that seem to exist between or across your known categories…

Perhaps one way I can answer your question is to quote one of your earth writers, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who says in his charming story: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.” We agree 100%!

Hee hee, Cosmo, you are funny as well as smart! :)
Okay, final question before you jet off: what does the “H” in your name stand for?
HOPE!