The Peacock Mittens & Peacock Cowl are inspired by the gorgeous peacock fountains that abound in the designs of the California Revival.

Both are initially worked in intarsia, using only three colors: the base color, the base peacock color, and the base flower color. After the base piece is finished, block it, then work the duplicate stitch embroidery.

Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and take your time! Start with the flowers; they’re easier, and if this is your first time duplicate stitching, you’ll get plenty of practice before starting the peacock. With the peacock, though you should be precise with the eye, beak, neck and legs duplicate stitching, you can use the chart as a guideline for the tail and body highlights and the feather embroidery.

I wanted to highlight the different Shetland yarns, and chose to make two different colorways. The teal and fuchsia colorway of the cowl evokes the bright colors of many of the fountains I’ve seen; the blue colorway of the mitts is more subtle.

Yarn: Elemental Affects, Natural Shetland Fingering in the following colorways. Please note for the duplicate stitching you need less than 30 yards of each duplicate stitch color (DPC). Intarsia colors are noted by (IC).

Mioget (main color mitt), 2 skeins. (IC)
Violet (main color flowers), 1 skein. (IC)
Denim (main color peacock body), 1 skein. (IC)
Teal (peacock tail ‘eye’ center) (DPC)
Lichen (peacock tail ‘eye’ outer color) (DPC)
Aegean (peacock body & wing details) (DPC)
Pumpkin (peacock legs, beak) (DPC)
Scarlet (peacock eye) (DPC)
Periwinkle (edge flowers) (DPC)
Moorit (tree branch) (DPC)

Notions & Other Supplies: Extra needle or waste yarn for provisional cast on, crochet hook for beading, yarn needle

Beads Size 6/0: red for eyes, emerald rainbow for tail feathers, blue for flowers

Skills Required: Beading, picot hems, provisional cast on, sewn hem, reading charts

Thank you to Alexandra Virgiel for tech editing.

ERRATA to first printing of book: Chart, Row 67, base left mitt, stitch count (charted as 49) should be 52 after separation of thumb gusset. Directions as written will result in the correct stitch count.