Peacock Plume Felted Wool Crossbody Bag

The bag is cut as a fan because the bird is in full display. Five chartreuse feathers spread across a peacock-teal ground, each ending in an eye worked in concentric rings of yellow, orange, royal blue and a teal pupil, with green chain stitch running out along every shaft like barbs. Felt pom-poms in pink, marigold, orange and turquoise are scattered through the train.

At the base, where the feathers gather, the bird himself stands out from the surface in the round: a teal body with his wing stitched in darker blue, an orange beak, one bright embroidered eye, and a crest of five fine stalks tipped in yellow.

Those eyes have a story. In the Greek telling, Hera set the giant Argus to keep watch, and he had a hundred eyes so that some were always open. When Hermes killed him, Hera gathered the hundred eyes and set them into the tail of her peacock, where they have been ever since.

The body is wet-felted and edged all around in blue running stitch, with a zip across the top. The strap is a strand of marbled oval beads in a dozen colors, spaced with small gold rounds, and it unclips at both ends, so the fan can hang on a hook as an object when you are not wearing it.

Made from New Zealand wool.