Realistic coloured tattoo of a red rose with green leaves, black lace and beaded chain on the lower abdomen.

Red rose with lace and beads on the hip

Realism · Other · Colour · Photo

A large red rose in full bloom is the central subject, surrounded by dark green leaves, black lace and a looped black beaded chain. The petals are shaded with smooth gradients and pale highlights, giving a realistic, dimensional finish. The design sits diagonally across the lower abdomen, with the rose centred and the lace and chain trailing outwards.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Margaret,

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The rose came up from Bristol on Tuesday wrapped in tissue, and Mr Okonedo at the haberdashery swore he had never seen such a red. I have pinned it to the black Chantilly you sent from Leeds, the one with the scalloped edge, and it looks like something from a shop window in London. Don't tell Mother I am wasting Dad's money on ribbon.

The beads were the trouble. Mrs Pryce wanted jet, not glass, and it took three Saturdays on the bus to Hereford before I found a string that didn't snag. I stitched them in a loop that trails down from the bloom like a rosary someone dropped, and every time the lamp catches them I think of Gran's, the one she said she lost on the ferry and never really did.

The chain was my idea. Mr Pryce says nobody in Ledbury will pay for a bit of black lace and a handful of beads, that they want their roses plain and their Sundays plainer. But the girls from the Co-op keep coming in to stroke the fabric and ask whether I'd do one for them, and yesterday Ada Lloyd asked for hers in green.

So I have started a list in the back of the order book. Four names so far, and a fifth if Mrs Pryce comes round. Write soon and tell me what the Leeds girls are wearing. I shall have my needle ready.

Your loving sister, Eleanor

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