Lotus and mandala on upper back

The shawl came back from the dyers in Bradford with the lotus still wrong at the centre. Mr Haworth says the madder bled into the petals where I asked for shadow, so the bloom looks bruised rather than lit. I told him a lotus should never look bruised. He laughed and said nothing in the trade should look like anything, it should only sell.

I have been carving the blocks again at the kitchen table, by the window where the light goes green off the pear tree. The paisley teardrops came easily. It is the dots that take the hours. Every ornament is filled with stipple, a hundred pinpricks of the point to make the grey fall off into paper, and by the third evening my thumb had gone numb and my eyes ached like a bad tooth. Mother used to say the dots were the prayer and the lines were only the frame. I thought she was being soft. Now I am not so sure.

The last block I cut was the flower itself, the one that sits in the middle of everything. I cut each petal with a graver so it lifts out of the mandala as if it is trying to climb out of the mud. There is a pond behind the orchard at Cold Harbour where these come up every August, and I have never once seen one open without first folding back under the surface by evening. Dad says they open clean each morning and close in the afternoon. I stood there with my sleeves rolled and watched one shut, and I drew it badly, and the drawing is in the envelope with this.

Send the shawl back when it is finished. Keep the drawing if you like. I am printing the pattern on Thursday, and I will put the bruised one aside for Mr Haworth to see.

Love, Ada