Stuffed Animals and Quantum Physics

Hobbes (right) and boB

I seldom take requests, but when the request comes from a four-year-old I sometimes give in. In this case, the project involved making a Hobbes doll, an undertaking made far easier by a talented young maker called "seamster," who figured out the pattern and posted it as a free download on Instructables: http://www.instructables.com/id/Stuffed-Hobbes-with-pattern/. Generally I find sewing someone else's pattern a little boring, and in this case the drudgery involved hand-sewing 29 stripes. In the process, I figured the four-year-old's sister, age two, also deserved a doll, so I made one out of Hobbes scraps.

Meet boB, a stuffed animal with a back story involving parallel universes, string theory, a palindrome, the quantum theory of superposition (via Shrödinger’s cat), and a twist on sub-equatorial folklore. Clearly I don't believe in talking down to two-year-olds.

Meet boB

boB's back pocket (note string)

Since the Hobbes doll has its own comic strip, I decided to create a little spiral-bound boB booklet to accompany the doll, a quick-and-dirty process that took about two hours. What does all of this prove? Hand sewing is an ideal realm for letting the mind roam free. Consider making your own nonsense animal and in the process, figure out its story. All of the images used are copyright-free pictures from the Web, except the photos of boB.