Close-up of a black lace-pattern tattoo with scrollwork and floral motifs running down a forearm, with a black lace bra visible behind it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black lace-pattern tattoo on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman's arm, held across her torso, shows a black lace-pattern tattoo with scrolling and floral motifs that runs from the wrist up towards the elbow. The linework is bold and solid, with fine netted detail filling the spaces between the motifs. The ink is black on pale skin, and the dark lace bra in the background echoes the design.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Win, the snow has shut the Exeter road since Tuesday, so I am writing this at the end of the taproom table with the landlord's grey cat asleep across my pattern book. The coach went on without me. Mrs Pyke has given me a bed under the eaves and a stub of candle, which is more than the carter got, and I have promised to finish the cuff for her niece's wedding before we see the road again.

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The cuff is a sprig and scroll sort of work, with the net ground filled in tight between the motifs so that the whole thing reads dark against the cream thread. You know how Mother hated a loose ground. I have spent two evenings with a pricking and a pin, and my bobbins have clicked so often the cat has stopped minding.

Yesterday the frost came in overnight and furred the inside of the window. When I came down there were fern fronds and bell flowers and little curling tendrils climbing the glass, all in silver on black, and the sun had not yet found them. I sat on the settle and copied what I could onto the back of Mrs Pyke's rent book before the first light made it run.

It will be gone by noon, the landlord says, one way or another. So I have pricked a sprig from it into the cuff, and I think the bride will never know where her lace was born, only that it held.

Write back soon. Tell Father the road is open when it is open.

Love, Ada

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