Black and grey lace-effect tattoo with chains and scrollwork across the ribs, with a small pink-purple centre, shown in two photos.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lace-effect chain tattoo across the ribs

Dotwork · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a lace-like ornamental design with scrolls, dotted chains and drapes that hang below a central winged motif. The linework is fine and the shading is built from dots and soft grey tones, with a small patch of pink or purple in the centre. The two photos show the same design from slightly different angles across the lower torso.

Dotwork Ribs Lace Chain Scroll Bead Drapery

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maureen, the rain has been coming sideways across the market since six, and twice now the awning poles have dripped into my tea. Still, I sold the chandelier drop lot to a woman from Leeds who wanted it for a wedding. Forty strands of jet beads, a yard of Nottingham lace gone the colour of weak tea, and the brass moth clip that was the last thing left in the box.

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She turned the moth over in her palm and asked whether the pink glass in its belly was real garnet. I told her the truth, that nobody knows. Old Mr Halloran who sold me the box swore his mother wore it to the Co-op dance in 1958 and came home with it still pinned on. She laughed and said that sounded like a lie worth paying for.

The chains were the hard part to price. Every drop of beads had been strung by hand and knotted every fourth bead, so one broken strand would not run the whole length. I counted them while the rain drummed on the tarp, the way Dad used to count stitches on a lace collar. Eleven swags, the top one bigger than the rest, and the scrolls at the edges curled like a fern that had thought better of growing.

She paid thirty pounds and asked me to wrap it in tissue, not plastic, because plastic sweats. So I did. Tell Dad the stall made four pounds, and that I kept the bent scrap of drape that didn't fit, the one with the little hole where the moth used to hang. I'm sending it in this envelope. Keep it dry.