Useless but cute

Yesterday was patchwork day at Mrs. Furui's. I found her busily making these darling little cats! She had found them at a tea shop somewhere and thinking that many of her patchwork friends (there are seven of us) would like them, she pondered buying enough for all of us. At $2.50 a piece though she decided to buy one... take it apart... make her own pattern... and then make them herself. This is the result of her work.

When I arrived she was in the process of putting beads into them and gathering up the bottoms. She wanted me to wait until she had all of them made before I took my picture "since they are so cute all together."

Other people began arriving for patchwork.

"What are you making Mrs. Furui? Are these for the kindergarten bazaar? Are you going to sell them? These would be great for our church bazaar in a few weeks. We can always sell useless things that are cute."

WELL! It's a good thing that Mrs. Furui doesn't take offense easily! In fact she laughed so hard that she had to write down that phrase for crafting posterity.

"Useless things that are cute"

To make matters worse, two of our non-cat lovers declined the gift of a useless but cute cat! Poor Mrs. Furui! BUT yours truly and another cat lover squealed in delight and took home two each, while everyone else was pleased to receive their one useless but cute cat.

Actually I brought home two other useless but cute objects for my house. I stopped at the bread shop on the way home and found these cute hedgehogs on the shelf. I asked if I could take a picture and they gave me two of them for my OWN shelf! Adorable!

Unfortunately my cats think the useless but cute hedgehogs should be used... as cat toys... so I've already had to rescue the hedgehogs from under the dining room table.