Owning a Paisley cushion is one of the most obvious ways of showing your love for Paisley. Along with Paisley coasters and Paisley banjo stickers (maybe not), they are the items that will be most visible to guests in your home, unless you whisk your guests straight to the bedroom, where your Paisley duvet cover will be the topic of conversation, once the necessities have been taken care of.
What is a cushion?
I won’t answer that because unless you are from planet ZigZag, you should already know. If you don’t know, Google it. If you don’t know what Google is, then okay, I’m now beyond feeling sorry for you.
Okay, okay! A cushion is a piece of decorative cloth, stuffed with soft material, and used to hide stains on your sofas and chairs. The decorative element is important because if the cushion is plain, it will be picked up and thrown away as an irrelevance – thereby exposing the stain to public scrutiny.
Why a Paisley Cushion?
A Paisley cushion's intricate design instantly adds elegance and sophistication to any space. The iconic teardrop-shaped motif has been around for centuries - so does that not qualify it as a timeless classic? Its endless pattern variations ensure it seamlessly complements any home decor style, whether they lean toward traditional, contemporary, or eclectic.
Paisley's captivating design and the vibrant colours often used in it breathe new life into your living spaces, making them feel more inviting and cosy. The rhythmic and flowing nature of the design adds a sense of movement and energy to your room, creating a dynamic yet harmonious atmosphere.
Moreover, a Paisley pattern cushion can act as a stunning focal point, adding a splash of colour against more neutral furnishings.
So, why settle for ordinary when you can enhance your space with the timeless charm of Paisley? Paisley cushions don’t come in all different shapes. They are always square. But they come in all different sizes – from large to small (with large defined as 6 feet by 6 feet, and small defined as 1 inch by 1 inch). Generally, they are about 18 inches by 18 inches - large enough to cover the largest stain known to a man or woman, but not a baby.
A baby’s ability to projectile vomit is the reason we get 6 feet by 6 feet cushions, and also Paisley Pattern throws, which can be used to cover a fully-stained sofa or a sofa substitute.
While a fully functioning pillow will have soft material inside it, a decorative pillow can have anything inside it – even bricks. In the unlikely event of a tornado hitting your home, it is marginally less likely to be blown away if your cushions (and you would need to have hundreds) are filled with bricks. In this situation, the pillow turns from decorative to functional, as you also hold on to it to weigh yourself down. This reinforces the old adage about ‘everything has a use, even a brick pillow in a tornado.’
Once you have survived the tornado, your gratitude to your Paisley pillow should be placed in your trophy or display cabinet. Unfortunately, this will not be possible because your cabinet will be in pieces three miles up the road.
What is the difference between a cushion and a pillow?
The big question, Just Paisley is always asked is ‘What is the difference between a pillow and a cushion?’
When asked this, I always answer by looking to the sky, which is meant to show my absolute disdain for the question. Unfortunately, some people look up to see if any pillows or cushions are flying around. If so, I normally pluck these imaginary pillows and cushions out of the air and use them to show the obvious differences between both.
Fortunately, people like this are in the minority. But, if you are one of these people, I will now explain the difference between a pillow and a cushion. A pillow is rectangular and as previously highlighted, a cushion is square.
Most people use pillows to lay their heads on when they sleep. Others use them for fun fighting. Others use them to prop up their bodies to enable them to eat or watch TV in bed.
This article is not about the habits of pillow users but about the much more energetic cushion users.
Can cushions be used on the head?
Cushions can be used to lay your head on when you sleep. But, because you are much more energetic than your pillow counterpart, your sleep will be called a nap. And unlike with a pillow user, you will wear your shoes while using a cushion – make sure you don’t put them on the sofa because the stain created might mean your cushion will soon get a brother or sister.
If you are wearing hair spray or gel, or suffer from extremely greasy hair, this could stain your cushion. This would be self-defeating as the whole point of the cushion is to be a stain-hider. However, the cushion is a forgiving creature and allows you one mistake – if you stain it, you simply turn it over.
This leaves you in a position where one stain meets another – the stain on the sofa meeting the stain on the cushion. Depending on the elements in play here, this could create a chemical reaction. Gases may form, heat could result and the flammability of your sofa/cushion combo could go up a notch. Please be aware of this!
Cushions for decoration?
This is the best way to use Paisley Pattern adorned cushions. And the great thing about multiple Paisley cushions is that they don’t need to match each other. Indeed, they can be wildly mismatched and still look brilliant together, even when stacked in great numbers or even piled up.
The only limiting factor in the number of Paisley cushions you can place on your sofa is remembering why you have it – to sit on. If you have a 3-seater sofa, we recommend leaving enough space for 3 posteriors to be sat on it at any time. Once the 3 people are sitting on it, any number of cushions can then be placed around or on top of them.
Of course, if you buy a 3-seater sofa, in the hope you gather at least 2 friends while it is in your possession – if you fail – and you will fail, because gathering friends should be a natural occurrence and not a game played around a pre-planned exercise – then, at least you will have the consolation of knowing you will have even more space for throwing on cushions.
I read somewhere – in my mind, I believe – that the world record for the number of cushions to be placed on a sofa is 7 – so there is ample scope for you to become famous for something.
Given that according to the Guinness Book Of World Records, the longest sofa in the world is 3,300 feet long, I suspect your record is not likely to last long if other people seriously try to threaten it. Nonetheless, for a short while, you will be able to revel in the fact – or self-opinion – that you were a cushion-related world record holder – and more importantly, you will have started a collection of beautiful Paisley cushions.
One final point – if you are truly a Paisley lover, you might be tempted to buy a Paisley sofa to go with your Paisley cushions. I would caution against this. Paisley is best set against plain – so it is best to have a plain sofa with Paisley cushions or a Paisley sofa with plain cushions. If you must – and you are home alone – you could acquire Paisley cushions with plain backs, and turn the cushions over so that all Paisley is being displayed.
If you engage in such outrageous behaviour, Just Paisley recommends it is done for minutes, rather than hours. There is no record of a syndrome called Over-Paisley but Paisley’s psychedelic qualities are well documented. You have been warned!
One other final point – if you must absorb more Paisley than a mere cushion gives you, then consider a modern Paisley rug to go with the cushion. This will make your room classier than the classiest thing in the universe - nearly.
