" A pile of jelly beans" Ha Ha - that's just what it makes me think too.
BIL in Spain immediately said "Harlequin" - if you stand well back and screw your eyes up a bit.
The problem is SIL is adamant that harlequin is NOT the word she is looking for.
Mr. G. came up with an interesting thought.
What if SIL thinks of the harlequin pattern as something different to everyone else ? I often used to think whether other kids saw the same colours as I did when I was young. You know when you learn the name of a colour for the first time - one Art teacher at junior school wanted us to paint a sky picture and used terms like turquoise, azure and cobalt that we had never come across and I remember arguing with the girl next to me about which was which in the paint tray.
It would be easy to learn new shades etc. wrong wouldn't it ? So maybe she has mistaken what the harlequin pattern is all about.
Nevertheless she insists that the word is not that even if she is wrong about the pattern.
Personally that cushion does not make me think of clowns - maybe little cottages at the seaside ( a la Balamory) or ice cream sundaes or Skittles - but not clowns.
Her husband refuses to carry on the quest any longer as she's had him trawling the Internet more than a few times - so now he says she's on her own. He thinks that when she finally comes up with the word it will be something either completely off at a tangent or totally unrelated to any colour combination known to man. Either way, he's not holding his breath.
So despite hours of unpaid boring work at my laptop and all the efforts and worthy suggestions from yourselves - we are no nearer to solving this vexing puzzle.
Christine.
P.S. If only Jelboy were here I'm sure he would have something witty to add (perhaps there is another saga here, albeit in embyonic form at the moment)
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