YAAS! Call Me Mellow Yellow

Welcome to the first "Yaaas!"--the new label for my recurring design crush features.

I’ve admitted before to a pillow addiction. Not a surprise, given my proclivity toward boho home decor, right?

It’s not that I use too many at once (though hubby Chris would dis any number larger than two). It’s that I keep changing them out. I buy something I like, then a few months later I see something I like better.

Several months ago I discovered Nourison Fantasia series pillows on the Target website and have spent the time in-between drooling over them—obsessing about which ones I’d buy IF I chose to spend that much and how I’d arrange them.

Here are the four I (finally) narrowed it down to:

I love the bright colors and the funky bohemian look—unique, handcrafted and global, but not hippie-dippy. I came close to this look once, but Maisie-cat kept pulling the long pom-poms off the corners of two of the pillows, which took its toll on the silk covers. Another two (zebra print) eventually picked up more stains than the washer could whiten.

Since then, I've floundered in a sea of inadequate pillowing.

You can’t say I didn’t try to satisfy my habit with cheaper pillows, though I confess I might have paid for a chunk of the Nourison pillows with money spent on ones that didn't deliver but couldn't be returned.

Here's the spaghetti path my thought process took:

• I experimented with solid blocks of color in all lumbar pillows in turquoise only, turquoise and lime, turquoise and magenta, turquoise/lime/magenta, even turquoise and orange. 
• I tried kilim pillows (too scratchy, and the corners kept fraying out). 
• Multicolor sari pillows (also too scratchy AND raveled).
• In a moment of absolute desperation I resorted to the pillows that came with the sofa (gray shot with orange), though that one only lasted a day. 
• Somewhere along the line I let a little red back in with a vibrantly embroidered ikat pattern—and it looked better, but it didn’t cap my wanderlust. 

I longed for more texture and to get back some of the funky feel those zebra and pom-pom pillows had. I also wanted to ditch the symmetrical look of matching pillows at each end of the sofa and make every pillow different—a mix of fabric, shape AND size—something Anna Spiro suggests in Absolutely Beautiful Things.

All this convinced me the Fantasia pillows truly had it all, and I needed to bite the bullet and buy. So I moved them to my online shopping cart, where they sat for over a month while I went back and forth about which ones and mixed and matched with other makers.

About that shaggy yellow one…

Also Nourison. I saw it on Overstock while comparison shopping (Target wins on most counts). Yellow is not a color I gravitate to in my own home or even my wardrobe, and I’m not big on Mongolian lamb either. But that pillow reached out and spoke to me.

At first I was dismissive. Then I couldn’t rest thinking how the color perfectly matched the pops of bright yellow in the Fantasia pillows and would add a whole new dimension to my living room.

I argued back... 

You’re $85, and while I CAN afford to pay that for ONE very special accent pillow 

once in a great while (see how I start to rationalize?), it’s ridiculous to do so.

An animal died to make this silly pillow. 
I won’t encourage that by buying it! 

When Overstock reduced the price to $77, my rhetoric softened...

Well, the lamb is ALREADY dead. No turning back there.
It would be horrible for it to have given up its skin in vain. 

It’s STILL a ridiculous price, but if I'm sure this pillow is the ticket 

to set my sofa-scape rocking and rolling, then maybe it's okay.

The lambs are killed for their meat. The skin/wool is a byproduct.

(I looked it up.)

Maisie-cat would love grooming it.

I indulged my obsession by toying with images.

I still felt a little conflicted about how to mix the different sizes and patterns. Did I need more pillows than usual? Could I mix the new pillows with their predecessors for a plumper look? (A miniature Chris is sitting on my shoulder shouting, No! No!! NO!!) 

I added images of those other pillows to my mock-up. No, they didn’t work.

Then I was inspired by this pillow arrangement, in a living room that will be featured for its art in my post tomorrow:

Patrick Cline

The sofa itself looks curated because of the pillow mix. That’s the look I wanted, albeit with more colorful pillows.

My living room is basically a neutral canvas:

Which allows me the flexibility of an entirely new look by an easy change-out of accessories and accent colors.

• Walls = PPG French Gray Linen, a light gray that in natural light has a slight green cast
• Carpet = Mohawk Bohemian Beauty in Light Ray 
• Sofa = charcoal gray chenille, similar to the one here though plumper and more rounded. 
• Woven blinds mounted inside window frames 
• Mixed woods and metals 

Other givens:

• One lumbar pillow for Chris, who watches TV from the sofa and needs it for his back
• As few pillows as possible to keep Chris from complaining and the sofa always being a mess

Here’s what I settled on, minus the yellow shag:

The throw (from Karma Living, a recent find on Zulily) adds texture, brightens up the dark leather chair, and mixes well with the Fantasia pillows. The purple print (Jitterbug by Crypton) covers a wing chair I’ve lately moved into the room, switching out the other leather chair to my office. That one Fantasia pillow looks rad with it!

I placed my order Monday for all four, delighted to find a 20-percent off sale at Target! 

Now enter Lambchops…

POP! Better, right? I know. I need to order it.

And maybe I need just one more

Perhaps a darker solid round pillow to add to the mix of shapes? Like this felt flower petal pillow from Rizzy Home, also at Target, but not included in the sale. 

Here's how that looks:

Too much? It's five vs. four, and odd numbers are supposed to be more appealing, but in this case I'm not sure.

Thing is, the only review said the flower pillow wasn’t soft, nor was it made all that well, particularly for the price. It’s obviously just for looks—who’d want to rest their head on all those little layers? I could return it to the store easily enough, but I’m thinking maybe I should wait and see. I like round and I like this color. I could even make one. 

Or maybe the suggestion of round in the righthand Fantasia pillow is enough.

What do YOU think?

1. Only Fantasias 
2. Fantasias + yellow lamb and leave it at that 
3. Fantasias + yellow lamb + blue flower 
4. Fantasias + yellow lamb, but wait for (or make) a different round blue pillow 

I'm leaning toward #2. How 'bout you? Tell me in the comments so I can finally get some sleep!!

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