Truly a one-of-a-kind piece of wearable art. This gorgeous ivory Italian calf leather is bedecked with hand cut leather appliques. The appliques were then hand stitched and hand beaded onto the bag. Poppies and cornflowers sway in the under two magpies. The bag is lined in tobacco pigsuede and stitched in ivory. It is a special edition of our classic Virginia handbag. It measures: 10” across x 7” tall x 4”wide. Please enjoy this story behind it’s creation:

Two for Mirth

Magpies are a western icon. It is a symbol of duality -- a bird as beautiful as it is hardy. Surprisingly, magpies possess a special lore around the world. You can find legends of tricksters and thieves but also of great luck. Their very name is taken from the old English, ‘mag’ and ‘pie’ to chatter and bird. 

During the pandemic, I find myself considering the English nursery rhyme that uses the number of magpies as divination:

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth

Three for a funeral,

Four for birth

Five for heaven

Six for hell

Seven for the devil, his own self

The fine line between sorrow and mirth sums up the last eighteen months. The pandemic was both a bitter separation from “normal,” and an opportunity to reflect on true mirth. Of course, many across the mountain west have been contemplating this for long before the pandemic. As search for life’s greater meetings is a thread that binds mountain communities.

Hand-stitching, like folk art and nursery rhymes, is part of a collective consciousness. Passed along through generations, it is as much an art as a survival skill -- an expression through meditation during long winters. A true expression of folk art that melds both form and function. Therefore, I find it natural that I approached this form of beading and embroidery.

There has always been a need to mark time through fashion. This form of slow fashion becomes a type of memory album: the quilt for a newborn, handkerchief for a beau, a hand-embroidered wedding dress, or stitches on a pouch for the soldier heading off to war. Slowly locking memories stitch by stitch. Hand, needle, thread, and bead to remember what matters the most.

With Two for Mirth, what matters most is a reminder to search for joy. Two magpies for joy, poppies for remembrance, and cornflowers representing positive hope for the future and a humble reminder of nature's simple beauty and the fullness of life's cycle. I’ve marked time on leather to remember that dark days also had light. And as the wheel of fortune turns, we are left wondering what future befalls us. Yet, I am left judging the past for myself -- I’ll take two, two for mirth.