Black lace-pattern tattoo sleeve covering a woman's arm from the upper arm down over the hand, with a floral motif on the elbow and forearm.

Lace-pattern sleeve from upper arm to hand

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph of a woman's arm, from the upper arm to the fingers, covered in a tattoo that imitates black lace with floral and scrolling motifs. The linework is dense and detailed, with areas of soft shading that let the skin tone show through the pattern. The image is in black and grey with a blurred background and a black and white striped garment at the left.

Upper arm Forearm Hand Lace Floral Scrollwork Sleeve Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Win,

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The pattern you sent back from Exeter came unpricked, which is to say the pins are still in the card and I have not dared touch them since Tuesday. You will say I am being foolish. Mother's bobbins sit on the windowsill where the light comes through the Michaelmas daisies, and every time I reach for them the garden beyond the glass seems to have thrown another tendril of bindweed across the path.

Mr Pellow came up the lane this morning with a cutting of old rose he swore was from the wall at Colyton. He wanted to know if I would make a collar for his daughter's wedding, the way I did for Hannah Vosper. I told him I would think on it. He said the briars were already getting into the hedge and would I like the cuttings for the frame. I took them, because a gift is a gift, and I have pressed one into this letter so you can see the leaf: the same notched edge the ground stitch makes when you work it slowly.

Here is what I have decided. I will make the collar the old way, with the scrolled ground and the small sprigs at every turn, and I will not hurry it. Lace is only a garden you have agreed to keep still. Come home at Whitsun and bring your own pins. We will sit under the apple tree and count bobbins until the light goes off the card. Your loving sister, Ada