A pink and grey dandelion seed head on a long stem runs down the side of the ribs, with a black script quotation across the stem.

Dandelion and quote on the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A dandelion seed head in pink and mauve shading sits at the top of a long grey stem that runs down the side of the ribs. Black script lettering crosses the stem in two lines and reads as a quotation. The seed head uses soft shading and fine dark outlines, while the lettering is crisp and even, set against plain skin and a purple top at the left edge.

Lettering Botanical Ribs Dandelion Seed head Stem Quote Script Text

Find an artist for this

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

The miller's sons had scythed every yellow flower from the south meadow before the barley was in, because the flowers were no use to bread and their seeds drifted into the furrows. Only the patch beside the well was left, and old Ede would not let anyone near it with a blade.

Keep reading

She was small enough that the children took her for a bundle of shawls leaning on a stick. When the men came to argue, she stood at her gate with her hands folded and waited until they ran out of words. Then she told them that a seed head is only a promise, and a promise is worth nothing unless someone carries it across the field.

The men laughed and went home. That autumn the wind came up off the marsh and the barley lay flat, and the miller's youngest, a boy called Tobin who had pulled the first stem himself, walked out to the well at dusk with a cloth bag. Ede was already sitting on the wall. She took the bag, counted the grey seeds inside as though they were coins, and gave him back the empty cloth.

He asked her what she wanted for them. She said she wanted him to blow, and to keep blowing until his cheeks ached and the seeds were out over the ditch and the stubble and the drowned lane beyond. He did it all night. By morning the meadow was a soft white haze, and the miller, standing in his doorway, could not remember why he had ever wanted it bare.