Five ornate lotus and paisley motifs

The sample card came back from the mill on Thursday with the five motifs pinned to it, and Mr Okonedo wants them cut into blocks by the end of the month. I know you think I should refuse anything with paisley in it after the summer we had, but you should see them. He sent the drawings from the agency in Jaipur in pencil, each one a lotus opening into another lotus, and every petal has a second petal folded inside it like a letter inside an envelope. I spent two evenings with a loupe counting dots. There are four hundred and twelve in the top centre one alone.

I cut the first block last night under the bench lamp while the radiators knocked. Pear wood, very close grain, so the fine stipple should hold. The trick with lotus is the scroll at the base, where the petals stop pretending to be flowers and start being ribbon. You have to leave the uncut ground standing, otherwise the print goes muddy and the dots fill in. Mum taught me that with the cherry boxes, remember? Leave the space alone and it does the work for you.

Here is the odd part. When I laid the five drawings out in the arc they make on the table, the gap between the two lower ones looked wrong, like a missing tooth. So I went back to the agency's file and found a sixth sheet nobody had sent us, a single lotus with a tiny dot above it, drawn in the same hand. Mr Okonedo says it was never meant for the commission. I've cut it anyway, and it sits in the drawer now, wrapped in tissue. I'm not sure who it's for. Maybe I'll know when I see the shawl come off the press.

Love, Hettie