Burn the boats and craft on

Pillow designer Beth Cummings shows there is no turning back in her crafting adventure

By Alysse Dalessandro
Published: June 30th, 2009 | 8:00am

Beth Cummings’ first crafting memory is making a heart-shaped pillow for her Great Grandfather’s 100th birthday at the age of five. It’s pretty safe to say, this self-proclaimed “craft-o-holic,” has been crafting ever since. Now at 26, she has quit her lucrative banking job to work full-time in DIY. With quirky style, this former director-in-training shows us why handmade goods are here to stay and why her sewing machine is her best friend.

Although Cummings never took any formal sewing classes, she thinks owning a craft business was inevitable: “[On] my mother’s side of the family, everyone sews or crafts and my father has owned a business [for] as long as I can remember. I am definitely the child of those two parts.” Cummings opened her first Etsy store, Diffraction, a year and half ago to sell jewelry and began Diffraction Fiber in January 2009. Since that time she has really begun to immerse herself in the culture of handmade. “There’s just so many amazing crafters that I’ve met through Etsy and through different craft shows; I end up having a lot of different craft crushes on people,” she says.

Diffraction Fiber is home to Cummings’ unique brand of “pillows with personality.” She says, “They all have a sense of humor and they’re all so much of me. Everything is something that I would have in my own home if we wouldn’t be suffocated under pillows at this point.” With pillows in the form of peanut butter and jelly and fortune cookies, it’s not hard to see what she means by calling her work “niche orientated.” Although she never sits down with the intention of designing, her near constant random inspirations allow her crank out at least one new pillow per week.

Eccentric designs are not the only reason this crafter stands out — her pillows are made from plastic bottles. Rather than using traditional felt made from wool, Cummings uses eco-felt comprised of recycled plastic bottles. She describes it as a “fantastically versatile material” and adds, “ It’s durable, surprisingly soft, and its great for the environment.”

When Cummings decided to quit her day job in May 2009 to be a full-time crafter, her parents questioned why their usually practical daughter was taking the leap. Her dad suggested a switch to part-time, but she put it in terms of an analogy he could understand— the story of Fernando Cortez. “When he came to conquer South America, he told his soldiers to burn the boats so there was no chance of going back. The only option was success,” she says. “My father laughed at this and said, ‘Good enough.’”

“It’s always difficult to explain to people that I’m quitting my nice cushy job at a bank where they pay me far more than they should for doing very little work to jump into a career that has no guarantees — especially during the recession,” she says. Cummings finds that even during the recession, her business is growing. “I really do think the less money people have, the wiser they spend it,” she says. “Buy something that means something. If you buy someone a peanut butter and jelly pillow, you have to know them.”

Now Cummings spends her days far less caffeinated at home. Although she would like to grow her business, she does not have any intention of hiring a staff. “I like the simplicity of it: me and my sewing machine,” she says. “We spend hours together. We like each other very much. Bringing other people into the mix just seems to complicate it.”

Visit Cummings’ Etsy store or check for updates at diffractionfiber.blogspot.com