This autumn embrace the new cosy ways to turn your house into a home.  It’s that time of year to wrap up warm, snuggle up in style and think about cosying up your home for the colder months.  This season cosy celebrates lived-in interiors.
 
Magazines welcome what they are terming ‘the new cosy.’ Some say it’s comforting, warm, wonderful and give us lessons in layering with soft linens, sheepskin and rugs. Other headlines declare a bolder comfort with a move away from cliché twee tartan towards a simple contemporary cosy that sooths the senses.
 
‘The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes’ is the ode to staying in. It redefines comfort as ‘elegantly warm, the untouched and the original’ favouring softer low lit interiors, considered design in naturally tactile materials and warmer colours. As well as the seasonal woodland grey, this season sees seventies toffee brown and russet orange with velvety midnight blue.
 
This nod to seventies shades chimes with the great British carpet comeback for colour on floors and comfort with wall-to-wall carpet. And the return of the drinks trolley.

Architectural interior designer Ben Pentreath new patterns for Alternative Flooring are the hottest designs underfoot this season.
 
‘We’re increasingly asked to use carpet by clients. I think they are bored with floorboards. Interior design is influenced by the Seventies. It won’t be long before we are all carpeting the walls and ceiling.’  Ben Pentreath
 
Being bored with boards is why we love the luxury of wool on our floors. Patterns are for bold comfort while Wool Barefoot by Alternative Flooring, with its deep luxury pile is the ultimate eco carpet that invites you to tread softly.
 
www.alternativeflooring.com

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He pulled his piano with a bike up to rue Richard Lenoir ten metres from the Bataclan. The man quietly sat at the portable piano and played.  I imagine everyone around him or whoever has caught this moment - those with a religion or without, were as one singing the lyrics in their heads.
 
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
 
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

'Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite'  is basis of this passionate democracy. These are also some of values that form the basis of a common morality that should be shared by all humanity.  The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo;
 
‘What happened goes beyond anything we could have imagined, such is the horror. The targets are places we love, in this popular and open city of Paris which is happy to share the world’s culture because Paris is a city strengthened by its diversity.
 
It is this Paris which has been targeted because this model of togetherness is unbearable for fanatics, for those who want to reduce all humanity to silence.
 
The message that we want to give them, alongside other politicians, is that we will be stronger than those who would to reduce us to silence. We love to debate, we love to disagree, that’s democracy.’
 
www.youtube.com/watch
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I don’t know about ‘the handbags of interiors’ but there is always room for a cushion because these are accessories that you can change pretty often.
 
Even so, I would rather invest in a bevy of beauties rather than swap each season.  Thinking more about this I have cushions from Bennison, Papa Stour, Eleanor Pritchard, Margo Selby, St Jude’s and now saving up for a de Le Cuona Liquid Velvet. Goodness, I didn’t realise I had such a habit.
 
How can I give up when Pentreath & Hall announce LINDELL & CO new hand woven and hand stitched embroidered cushions NOW IN STOCK?
 
LINDELL & Co works with highly skilled artisans and the production is based in northern India and Nepal. Each piece is unique and all of their creations are produced in very small quantities, which make them so special.
 
Gabrielle Soyer designs these original and eclectic cushions and many use chain stitch, which is a centuries-old embroidery tradition that is kept alive by talented craftsmen.
 
The names of the cushions are fabulous too – Gloria, Riviera, New Sun, Butterfly and John.

Gloria and John
 
Ben Pentreath and Bridie Hall have also designed cushions for Fine Cell Work, a charity and social enterprise that trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework. Their graphic designs ‘Falling Cubes’ and ‘Tetrahedron’ are based on stone floor and marble patterns by the great 18th century designer Batty Langley.
 
Pentreath & Hall and Fine Cell Work both believe that no chair, sofa, bed or life is complete without a lot of cushions.
 
How right they are.
 
www.pentreath-hall.com/accessories/cushions
 
shop.finecellwork.co.uk
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