Black lace-pattern tattoo spanning the upper chest, shoulders and upper back, shown in two photos in a blackwork and botanical style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black lace-pattern tattoo across chest and upper back

Blackwork · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

The top photo shows an ornate black lace design covering the upper chest and shoulders, with floral motifs, scrollwork and fine detail. The lower photo shows the same lace-style pattern across the upper back and neck. The ink is black and grey, with dense solid areas and lighter fine linework.

Blackwork Botanical Chest Shoulder Back Lace Flower Leaves Scrollwork Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Maud had the net across her knees before the harbour bell, working the needle through the torn mesh of the Brightwater's trawl. Her mother had taught her the old knots, the sheet bend and the fisherman's loop, but she had also taught her that a good mend should hold a pattern as well as a load. The women of Lowmouth called it lace. Grey light came in over the slip, and the gulls were already quarrelling on the wall.

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Dan Pascoe had torn the net on the Scarrow ledge two nights back and sworn he would be home before the wind turned. Maud drew the twine tight, counted eleven squares, then twelve, and let her hands go on without her. A boy from the chandlery came down the steps with a pail of tar and asked whether she was nearly finished. 'Nearly,' she said. 'Another hour. It has to look like frost on the window of the Anchor, all leaves and little hollows, so nobody can find where the tear was.'

The boat came round the point at twenty past six, riding low, its sail furled and a crowd of gulls wheeling behind it. Maud stood up too quickly and the net slid off her knees onto the wet stones. She picked it up before anyone could see her hesitate, shook out the folds, and walked to the edge of the wall.

Dan climbed the ladder with his hair full of salt and took the net from her without a word. He ran his thumb along the repair, slowly, the way a man reads a letter he has waited all week for. 'Who taught you that?' he asked. 'My mother,' Maud said. 'She said the mend should always be the prettiest part.' He looked at the pattern, then at her, and for once he did not look at the sea.