Black line drawing of a circular mandala with scrolled leaf flourishes above and below, shown as a tattoo design on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black mandala design with scroll flourishes

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A symmetrical circular mandala sits between two ornamental scroll motifs, one above and one below. The linework is bold black on white, with layered petals, dotted rings and spiral curls forming the design. The composition is centred and evenly balanced, with no body part or skin visible.

Geometric Mandala Scroll Swirl Leaf Floral motif Circle Ornament

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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

Dear Win, the frost came early up here and the mill whistle has been wrong three mornings running, so I've been up before it with the lamp lit and your old crochet hook in my hand. I have finished the circle at last. Nineteen rounds, the way you taught me the summer before you sailed for Toronto: petals first, then the dotted ring, then the little curls Mother says look like ferns on a window. Mrs Haworth came round on Saturday and asked who had designed it. I told her you had, and she didn't believe me, because you never could draw a straight line with a ruler.

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The trouble is the centre. You always said the middle must be tight enough to hold a thimble, and mine keeps opening like a dropped stitch. I unpicked it four times. On Thursday I found the pattern for the heart of it in the back of your old notebook, the one with the pressed pansy, under a list of barm cake recipes. You had written it in pencil with a note beside it: For when I'm gone and you've forgotten. I hadn't forgotten. I'd only been waiting for the rest of it.

I've pinned the finished circle to the kitchen table to dry, and the morning light through the window throws the shadows of the loops across the oilcloth like a clock face with no hands. I think I shall send it to you. The postage is dear, but Father says a thing made by hand ought to cross an ocean once in its life.

Write soon and tell me if the snow there looks anything like ours. Your loving sister, Edie.