Dotwork rosette pattern on both feet

The house on Marine Terrace has finally let me have the back parlour for my work, though Mrs Pell still sniffs at the pouncing dust. I have pricked the rosette you asked about, the one with the eight rays that you said looked like a sea urchin someone had dropped in a sugar bowl. I did it the way Mother taught us, a pin at every crossing of the pattern, the paper held up against the window so the light comes through the holes like a sieve of stars.

It took me three nights. The trick is the fading. Start the ring tight and dense at the centre, then let the dots thin as they travel outward, so the eye reads a sun going down behind cloud. Mrs Pell's lodger, the retired cartographer with the dreadful cough, came in on Tuesday and said it looked like a chart of the tide pools at low water. He was right, which annoyed me more than I let show.

I've enclosed the sheet. Pin it to the wall above your loom, not to the table, since the damp off the sea gets into anything flat. When you prick the next one, go slowly at the rays. The pins want to drift, and the last ring will be ragged if you rush it.

The sea has been grey all week, but yesterday the cloud broke over the bay and every rosette in the window caught the light at once. Mrs Pell said it was the most reckless thing she had ever seen a lace pattern do. I agreed with her and went back to pricking.

Your loving sister, Maud