Warm Fuzzies and a Pin Cushion

I don’t follow Martha Stewart. Truly I don’t.

But you can’t live a Domestik Goddess lifestyle in the present decade without tripping over the American queen of home style every now and again… as happened recently in the course of my on-going pincushion quest.

Voila! — Bookmarked a while back and stashed (for safe keeping and future reference) in the great unfathomable morass that is my bookmarks folder, I just found this again — a Martha Stewart “how to” on a pincushion shaped like a tea cup, complete with saucer.

You make it from an old kitted sweater that got shrunk in the laundry or, if you’re perfect and never did that, knitted pieces that you’ve deliberately felted with hot water.

It’s so cute! The little cup, and the little saucer. Coffee or tea, whichever you want to call it — who’s to know? (The whipped cream on top is removable, by the way, if your pins and needles are watching their calories.) I’ll bet that half of the grannies down at the Women’s Institute are making a tea cup pincushion these days. But I’m not going to make one, I don’t think.

Why?

Because I’m totally humbled by the whimsical genius of the original designer of the caffeinated-beverage pin cushion, the TV guest from whom Our Martha learned the craft — wool artist Betz White. My own efforts would look like a grade-school kid’s first stab at a play-dough pinch pot, compared to hers.

So I shall just look and envy and enjoy the fact that a sense of humor can be found in the domestic realm… and keep an eye out for Betz White’s new book, Warm Fuzzies: 30 Sweet Felted Projects , which is due out later this year.