Cushioned Comfort

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 640, 17 April 1929, Page 14

Cushioned Comfort

(By

"PENATES”)

SCOPE FOR ORIGINALITY

Matching Colour of Curtains

!n tliese days of attention to furnishing detail, cushions play an important part in all decorating schemes. A cushion is no longer a shapeless bag stuffed with some more or less soft substance.

W E rely on cushions, to a great extent, for colour as well as comfort in our rooms. The covers should have character, and fussiness should be avoided. If possible, they should be filled with down, as this makes for greater comfort. The discriminating shopper is greeted with a galaxy in down. Picture soft squares of rich silk in allover designs, square and oblong cushions enriched with bands of beautiful brocade, short, broad bolster cushions, covered with rainbow-striped silk, the ends usually caught with a golden tassel, fan-shaped cushions in satin and brocade, as well as thonged and tooled leather cushions.

Should you want new cushions for lounge, smoke-room, or study, you will welcome the latest in leather. Some are simply squares of suede leather in soft pastel shades, laced together with leather laces instead of being stitched in the usual fashion. Others are ornamented with squares or circles of exquisite toolwork. The most beautiful leather cushions are either of delicate biscuit or white leather, and would look at home in a smartlykept yacht.

Choose dark leather cushions for a smoke-room or lounge. The latest are made of squares of differentsliaded leather which gives a tartan effect, and of plaited leather. In lounging rooms you should also place one or two of the floor cushions made of embroidered hessian.

For divans and sofas, choose large squashy cushions, square or circular. One never seems to tire of the large rucked, circular cushion of shot silk. .

For cushioned easy chairs, all you want is sometimes just a tiny cushion to nestle into the small of the back. These you can make any shape you like, though naturally a miniature bolster or oblong cushion is best for the purpose. Select for fireside seats, oblong seat as well as back cushions, and these you are better to choose covered in hand-woven linen or other striped material, which washes well. Keep dainty brocade, silk and satin cushions for boudoir or drawing-room use, taking care when selecting them co see that if they are not of the same material as your curtains they at least tone with them.

One of the latest ideas in soft furnishing is to choose curtains ani cushions in this way—applique curtains with a design made out of your cushion material, which must harmonise with curtain fabric. For example, deep cream linen curtains ip a lounge sitting-room are decorated with a conventional design in delphinium blue. The cushions, made of the same delphinium blue, are appliqued in cream.

If you have one of those divans tl*at are a bed by night and a couch by day, use your pillows for cushions, giving them loose covers of silk or printed linen or casement in the daytime. Fit them with patent fasteners.

If you have light linen or silken cushions in the drawing-room, to secure an air of coolness in the summer, cover them up in the winter with cheerful-looking covers of shot sunset silk, or palette-striped silk. You want to bring as much sunlight effect into your home in the dark days as you can. So scrap cool-looking covers and substitute orange, yellow, tomato, red and all the bright shades that go with your colour scheme. I Should you possess an old bolster you don't require, double it over and secure ends together, then cover it in keeping with your other bedroom cushions. Then the next time you step out of bed, don't step on the mat you may or may not have made yourself. Step on yonr bedside cushion.