It's rare to find handmade pillows made of such playful and elegant fabrics, which are also reasonably priced. Enter Sylvie Guieysse, a former costume designer for theaters in Paris, who now loves searching through fabric piles in New York's fabric district. She pieces together silk, suede and cotton swatches from Asia, Africa and Europe to great effect. Her company is called La Joyeuse Couturiere (the Happy Seamstress).

As a young designer, Sylvie visited the legendary cities of Samarkand and Bukhara on Silk Road, learning about the original craft of Asian tapestries. Later, she became interested in historic European fabrics, or prints from Africa and Japan. Anything the Manhattan designer can find is now fare game for her handmade clothing or pillows.

"When I love the fabric, I just want to do something with it," Sylvie told us when we met her recently at the New York Gift Fair. "I love to go shopping in New York's fabric district. In some stores it's such a mess, you really have to search. But I love the district. People there come from all over the world.

"When designing a Pillow, I focus all of my energy on colors and textures, rediscovering 18th century Toile de Jouy patterns, embracing African wax motifs, or gathering flashy abstract fabric designs. I am happy knowing that I am able to facilitate these improbable encounters between ages and civilizations, between lines and curves, mixing a tender orange with an exotic yet serene purple," she says.

Sylvie enjoys focusing her creativity on pillows because the consistent shape serves as an painter's frame, a starting point for her vision.