Black ornamental emblem tattoo with lace-like fine linework and rosette details, placed on the back of a person's neck.

Ornate emblem on the back of the neck

Fine line · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph from behind of a person with auburn hair tied up, showing a black tattoo of a circular emblem on the back of the neck. The emblem is filled with intricate lace-like linework, including two rosette motifs, scrollwork and small dots. The tattoo is in black ink only, and the composition is centred on the neck with a cream lace top visible below.

Fine line Geometric Neck Emblem Rosette Lace pattern Scrollwork Circle Dot Mandala

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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 wind has backed round to the north again, and your aunt's stool is still where she left it by the net loft door, one leg shorter than the rest since the winter the Mary Lune went on the Skerry. You sit down on it anyway. Your hands know the work before your head does: a bone needle, a hank of tarred twine, the pattern pricked onto card in her small, careful hand. Circles inside circles. Two rosettes like cut-paper flowers. Scroll that doubles back on itself until you cannot see where it began.

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The men want their fleet mark on the new sail, the crescent with its wings lifted, and they want it worked in lace because the buyers in Lerwick pay more for something that looks like it belongs at a wedding. You do not tell them the knots are the point. Every loop is a count of hours at sea and every dot a boat that came home. Your aunt taught you that a net mended badly lets the small fish through, and a mark stitched badly lets the wrong boat claim the grounds.

On the third night the glass drops hard. You work by lamplight with the door bolted, and when the last loop is tied you hold the sail up to the window and the pattern shows through the weave like frost on a pane. Down on the slip, the spare hull knocks against the wall, and somebody shouts your name, not your aunt's.

At first light the fleet comes round the point with the wind behind them. You stand on the wall with your hands still smelling of tar and watch the sail fill. The rosettes catch the sun, and you count the boats in under them, one stitch for each dot, until the last hull noses into the harbour and the count comes out right.