Squishaus
Top shop for gifts.
A buyer bought a gift from this shop and gave it a 5-star review!
Announcement
Welcome to our studio, Squishaus! We are Nick and Magnus, and make sock monsters, crocheted luxuries, embroidered cryptids, and feltworks.
Our shop is sorted into these four departments:
- Lost Socks: A radical spin on the traditional sock monkey folk art, we sew monsters, creatures and other characters from discarded footwear.
- Hands of Man: Unique luxury crocheted bags, accessories, and home goods, designed and worked by Magnus
- Half Moon Mutiny: Kitschy felt food pins, Pride flag bar pins, and elaborate felted wall art, designed and worked by Nick
- Cryptid Pastoral: Vintage crewelwork and needlepoint patterns reworked to include crypids, haunts and other beasties by Magnus
If you saw something at a show that you don't see here, or are interested in custom work, please email us!
Announcement
Welcome to our studio, Squishaus! We are Nick and Magnus, and make sock monsters, crocheted luxuries, embroidered cryptids, and feltworks.
Our shop is sorted into these four departments:
- Lost Socks: A radical spin on the traditional sock monkey folk art, we sew monsters, creatures and other characters from discarded footwear.
- Hands of Man: Unique luxury crocheted bags, accessories, and home goods, designed and worked by Magnus
- Half Moon Mutiny: Kitschy felt food pins, Pride flag bar pins, and elaborate felted wall art, designed and worked by Nick
- Cryptid Pastoral: Vintage crewelwork and needlepoint patterns reworked to include crypids, haunts and other beasties by Magnus
If you saw something at a show that you don't see here, or are interested in custom work, please email us!
Items
All Items
Reviews
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Betsy on Aug 26, 2021
5 out of 5 starsI love this! I had been eyeing it for a long time and am glad I finally ordered. Item shipped quickly. Can't wait to display it in my office.
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Lauren on Aug 22, 2021
5 out of 5 starsLove it, love it, love it! I've pinned it onto my jacket and it's awesome. I really like the size, it fit perfectly over the pocket.
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Nick on Jul 28, 2021
5 out of 5 starsI love it- I'd been looking at it for a long while and finally had to have it!! The construction is wonderful can already being matted it can go in a frame easily! Thank you again!
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Michael on Jan 5, 2021
5 out of 5 starsGorgeous hand-knit rug and amazing accent piece! Shipped very quickly too :)
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Amanda on Nov 29, 2020
5 out of 5 starsabsolutely fantastic shop i have several of the sock dolls and i love them all so much! getting a custom order made, definitely worth the money :)
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K on Jul 8, 2020
5 out of 5 starsQuickly received and beautifully made lgbtqia+ pride sketchbook. Thank you it will be a nice gift.
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vie35 on Jun 9, 2014
5 out of 5 starscute little fella :) thankyou very much and arrived very quickly :)
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Anonymous on Jun 2, 2012
5 out of 5 starsHe is very cute. Just as advertised.
About Squishaus
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You can choose your friends, but you can't choose who you're related to!
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A glimpse into our crowded studio in The Gallery @ 1101.
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More old friends, all since gone on to good homes.
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A group shot from years past at the 2015 Columbia Festival of the Arts.
Lost In The Dryer
The Creature Feature: The Lost Socks division of Squishaus was born in the fall of 2011, after the company we had worked for for the previous eleven years folded. Our primary creator Nick had picked up a book on making sock monkeys a week earlier, as something to do with his now ample free time. In short order he had moved away from the traditional primates and was making strange and wonderful new creatures. We displayed them in the back of our VW Beetle, and they started to get a lot of attention from passersby. Magnus started giving them names and backstories, and in short order, it was clear we had a potential business on our hands.
Art You Can Touch: Nick already had a long history making plush before Lost Socks came to be. Educated in the Waldorf system for 12 years, he was immersed daily in the making of useable and wearable art, as well as the pleasure of all things soft and cute. A long admiration for the works of puppeteers Jim Henson and Brian Froud; as well as children's book illustrators Maurice Sendak and Tomi Ungerer, lent a heavy flavor to his work. In much the same way, we enjoy the marrying of cuteness with a sense of the macabre, or even grotesque- and these adorable little creatures today might be influenced by things as potent as horror shows, science fiction, heavy metal, and esoteric occult philosophies.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost: The question remains- why socks? Why stick with the ' sock monkey' as a basis for construction when we could clearly move on? If you think about it, socks have a very odd place in our hearts: On one hand, they're forgettable. They're something we step on. You can actually buy them in grocery stores, like something you would consume. And even at their most colorful and interesting, they're largely hidden from sight, glimpsed disappearing into shoes or up pants legs. But at the same time, every kid knows about the mythology of 'lost socks'. Where did my other sock go? The dryer ate it. The gnomes took it. It went to live with Jesus. Our drawers fill up with the mate-less, but still we hate to throw them out, and hold onto the idea that the other one will somehow turn up somehow if we just wait it out. Pretty obsessive for something we step on, isn't it?
In time our project lines grew to encompass Magnus' crochet work in our Hands of Man line, as well as Nick's feltworks in Half-Moon Mutiny, but the origin stories of these are a bit more prosaic. :)
Shop members
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Nick
Owner, Maker, Designer
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Magnus
Owner, Maker, Designer
Shop policies
Accepted payment methods
Returns and exchanges
Payment
Shipping
Please message us if you are not located in the USA and are interested in having items shipped overseas, and we will get back to you with a shipping quote.
Additional policies and FAQs
More information
Frequently asked questions
Custom and personalized orders
We do do customized and personalized orders contingent on our ability to acquire the needed materials. Costs are determined by the complexity of the order as well as materials cost; if you want a loose guesstimate for a price, look for a finished piece with roughly the same level of detail and assume that's around the starting point. Always feel free to just contact us and ask!
Care instructions
Lost Socks and Half-Moon Mutiny: Spot-clean with a damp cloth only.
Hands of Man: Machine wash delicate and cold at your own risk. Tumble-dry low or drip-dry.
Are Any Of Your Dolls Safe For Babies?
We have an infant-safe line of small toys with embroidered eyes and faces- the soft sharkies offered here are just one of many of the little animals we make. Most of these are sold at our live shows instead of listed here, but drop us a line and we can let you know what we have in stock. These guys usually run $25-35.
Do You Have a Store I Can Visit?
We have a studio in Arbutus, Maryland as a part of the Baltimore County Arts Guild. There are open studio hours, but no guarantee that we'll be there then, so if you want to shop the collection and see works in progress, email us and we can make sure we'll be around if possible.
The One I Wanted Is Already Sold- Can You Make Another?
In very rare circumstances, we will be able to source enough of the same materials to make something very similar, but not identical, to the one that was sold- but by and large, this usually isn't an option. What we can do is replicate the original shape, but it will likely vary in color and decorative embellishments. Hands of Man have the highest likelihood of being duplicated.
Can I Donate Socks/Buttons/Etc?
You can always donate socks- but we may or may not have a use for them. Certain types of material don't work very well or retain colors when stretched, and used socks sometimes have wear patterns or ground-in dirt that makes them unusable. In general, we can't use:
- socks made with fuzzy chenille (they fall apart when you cut them)
- dirty socks
- plain white or mostly white socks
- socks with threadbare patches or giant holes
- footie socks (too small)
- men's dress socks (too thin)
- socks with licensed characters on them
If your donation socks fall mostly into these categories, they would probably be better sent to a thrift store instead.
Button, bead, felt, and thread donations are always welcome! Yarn donations are case by case.