Black ink fine line tattoo of a lace-patterned heart with a bird, hanging chains and a small anchor, placed on the calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lace heart with hanging chains on a calf

Fine line · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A heart filled with openwork lace and filigree patterns sits at the top of the design, with a bird shape on its right side. Fine chains, beads and drops hang from the base of the heart, ending in a small anchor and a teardrop. The piece is done in black ink with light grey tones against a dark background, with the design centred vertically on the leg.

Fine line Calf Heart Lace Filigree Bird Chain Bead Anchor Teardrop

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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

The lace-maker's daughter wore her mother's heart on a ribbon at the Pavilion every Saturday, the dance hall above the harbour where the band played until the lamps ran low. It was no bigger than a hen's egg, worked thread with a bird perched on one side and little beads hanging from its base, and the young men circled it the way they circled the pie stall, looking without quite reaching.

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Tomas Ferrow came in off the Hull boat with salt still in his collar and asked her for the lace. She said it was not for sale. He said he had not asked to buy it. So she lifted the ribbon over her head and put it in his palm, and told him he could carry it through one dance and no more, because a heart carried too long goes thin at the edges.

He danced with it pinned to his coat. The chains swung against his knee and the little anchor tapped his boot at every turn. When the band struck up the last waltz he brought it back, and she saw that the bird had come unpicked and hung by a single loop, its wing trailing like a torn sleeve.

She did not scold him. She threaded a needle with the cord from his own boot laces, sewed the bird back on, and hung the heart in the window of the cottage on Quay Street. On the nights the wind came in off the water, the anchor knocked the glass, and the whole street knew he was still on his way home.