Daisy Tote Bag

A sunflower wide open on denim blue, and a whole verge of wildflowers coming up underneath it.

Two meadows, one bag

One face lets the sunflower run things: pointed petals ringed rust on the outside and gold inside them, a cream middle freckled with gold dots and collared in rust-orange. Two sage stems curl away from it and finish in open spirals. Beneath sit three white daisies with amber eyes, a poppy the colour of a terracotta pot with a blue-black centre, and a poppy bud still buttoned shut on its stalk. A teal cornflower stands to each side on a thin stem with a scaly little bud tucked under it.

The other face has no sunflower on it anywhere. It is a bunch coming up off the bottom edge instead: two poppies, two daisies, two cornflowers, a poppy bud hanging its head, and orange berries strung along stems that curl over at the tips. Same meadow, later in the afternoon.

Look again at the blue

It is mixed rather than flat: lighter where the wash pools toward the middle, going deeper at the corners. Ferns and leafy branches lie under that colour about a step darker than it, which is why the bag keeps giving you something on the fourth or fifth look rather than telling you everything at the till.

Three things about the bag itself

• Flat black webbing handles: wide, matte, set deep into the seam so the print carries on behind them
• Squared-off, with a panel flat across the base: cut square at the bottom rather than gathered into a pouch, which is why the print reads flat right across the face
• A small pull tab at one top corner: kept quiet enough that you have to go looking for it

None of this is made in advance. Yours goes to print once the order has landed, which is the plain reason the design cannot go missing on you between one visit and the next. You will be the only woman at the school gate carrying a meadow. Making yours runs five to ten working days.