Colour tattoo of a bow patterned with the American flag, with white stars on blue and red and white stripes, on a calf.

American flag bow on a calf

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

A large bow with loops and trailing ribbon ends is filled with the American flag pattern: white stars on a blue loop and red and white stripes across the other loops and ribbons. Black outlines define the shapes, and soft shading gives the ribbons some volume. The bow sits centrally on a close-up of the lower leg against a plain light background.

Neo-trad Calf Bow American flag Star Stripe Ribbon

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit yourself down by the fire, you'll not get the damp out of your bones standing there. Now. You want to hear about the ribbon. My mother kept it in the tin with the buttons, rolled tight the way you keep a thing you mean to give back.

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It came down in the bay the spring of 'forty-four, a crate on a parachute that snagged on the rocks at Sgeir Dubh, and the whole village was out in the currachs before the tide turned. Tins of peaches, a box of boots, and a roll of ribbon, red and white stripes with a band of blue at one edge and little white stars stitched in it, as if someone had stood on the sea and counted them. Nobody on Inishgarrow had seen such a thing. Father Ruaidhri said it was the flag of some faraway country cut into strips, and that was the end of it, because he said most things were.

My sister Peigi tied her hair with it the Sunday after. Tied it in a bow, two wide loops and the ends trailing down her back, and she went up the road as if she owned the wind. The boat did not come back for young Calum Ferguson, the one who had given that crate its shove off the slip. Peigi left the bow on his mother's step the morning the search was called off, and nobody said a word about it, not even the priest.

So when you ask what the ribbon means, I tell you it means the sea gives back colour sometimes, and we were glad of it even when it came with a price. Now pass me that tin. There is one more thing in it, and it is not for you.