Letter from DUMBO: Making Zombies

Home Brooklyn Life Letter from DUMBO: Making Zombies

Plush zombies greet Etsy crafters at a zombie making class in Dumbo. (The Brooklyn Ink/Cambrey Thomas)

Plush zombies greet Etsy crafters at a zombie making class in Dumbo. (Cambrey Thomas/The Brooklyn Ink)

By Cambrey N Thomas

I got off the elevator on the 5th floor at 55 Washington St. in Dumbo and followed the sandwich board signs to the Etsy Labs. A few turns down a winding hallway later and I was signing in for “Craft Night: Make a Zombie with Diana Schoenbrun.” Visitors to the labs have to wear nametags. The tags were stickers shaped like a embroidery frames that had “Hello my name is ___ and I heart ____” printed across them.

Etsy, founded in 2005, is an eBay-style Website for crafters and artisans to sell their found and handmade goods. On Mondays and Thursdays, the company invites Etsy enthusiasts and crafters to its headquarters for a craft night. And since it was just days before Halloween, Schoenbrun was going to teach us to make the plush zombies from her book, Beasties: How to Make 22 Mischievous Monsters That Go Bump in the Night.

“Cut out the arms and body,” she called out to the room as I walked in. As I passed by she handed me a zombie paper pattern that had each body part neatly numbered.

The room was small and packed. Nearly every table was full and all the tables were pushed a little too close to each other so that crafters sat back to back.

I squeezed into a seat at the first table between Ayun Halliday and a woman from Australia whose nametag said she loves Sam. Next to Halliday was her son, Milo, whose nametag said he loves evil. Across from us was a man coloring a large “Happy Halloween” banner. “It’s a secret,” he said.

Halliday sells her ‘zine, The East Village Inky, over Etsy and is also a fan of zombies. She participated in last year’s ZombieCon, and her husband, Greg Kotis, is writing a musical about zombies. “Will you cut out my stray parts?” she asked Milo, referring to the eyeballs and ears on the zombie pattern sheet.

Our table was scattered with markers, needles, spools of thread, and multicolored cloth. The room was littered with ropes of red pompoms, boxes of bright felt, pillows ripped open for fluff. A rack of lab coats stood nearby, but no one wore one.

Soon we all quieted down in concentration, carefully organizing our spare parts and politely passing around scissors. Halliday and Milo began stitching their zombie together while the man who’d been coloring switched to drawing Fox News logos. A woman with nasal septum piercing asked if we need any help. The crafters said “no.”

Schoenbrun stopped at our table to observe our progress. She wasn’t always known for her D.I.Y. zombies. “It started with a Yeti,” she said. “Then my book editor asked if I had any more.”

A few minutes later, she peered over my shoulder to remind me to not use cloth scissors to cut paper. I lifted my thumb off the scissors to show they had “PAPER” written in blue marker. “Oops, sorry, “ she said.

The man coloring the banner suddenly disappeared from our table. I found him taping his creation to a wall on the other side of the room, a “Happy Halloween” banner with little Fox News logos placed on each side.

We walked back to the table and Milo shouted “Freaky momma!” Halliday was holding up the pale green cotton fleshed zombie with outstretched orange arms.

“He’s bleeding from the mouth?” she asked. “Horrifying!”

“I like horrifying,” said Milo.

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