de Le Cuona | Elizabeth Paisley – Pheasant

Elizabeth Paisley is a paisley that has been taken out of the drawing room cliché and given a quieter voice. The cloth is a blend of wool and cotton, and you feel the wool first: a soft, slightly dry hand with some body, and enough weight to hang with a settled, unhurried drape. The motif is large and loosely spaced rather than tight and busy, so from across a room it reads as gentle movement in the surface, and only up close as a pattern. Pheasant is a warm, tobacco-leaning brown that sits well in low light.

The cloth is 75% wool and 25% cotton, and 135 cm wide. The vertical repeat is 64 cm and the horizontal repeat is 68 cm, which is generous and worth bearing in mind when you plan a pair of curtains, as the scale of the motif is part of the effect. It is sold by the half metre. We have not been given a Martindale figure for this cloth, and it is supplied as a curtain fabric, so that is how we would specify it.

We would use it for full-length curtains in a bedroom or a sitting room, where the weight of the wool helps with draught and sound as well as looks. It suits a window with some wall either side, so the repeat has room to be seen. For pairing, keep the walls plain and slightly lighter, perhaps a lime wash or a soft stone, and set it against a plain linen on a nearby chair so the pattern has something calm to sit beside.

Because the repeat is large, order more cloth than you would for a plain, and ask your workroom to cut and match each drop so the motif falls in the same place on both curtains. Take the repeat into account at the heading, so the pattern starts cleanly at the top rather than being cut awkwardly. A good interlining will help this cloth hang well, and we would add a lining, to protect the wool from sun and keep the face looking even.