Roses, lace and butterflies on a back

The new frame came up from Basford on Tuesday, and Mr Pickering has finally let me take the drawing cards home at night. You will laugh, but I spent three evenings copying his roses onto squared paper, the big ones with their petals folded over like cream poured into a cup. He says a rose on lace has to look as if it might drop a petal if you breathe on it. I told him I had never once breathed on a rose.

The lace itself is the trouble. The pattern runs away from you if the bobbins are not kept true, and the scrolls have to come off the machine clean at the edges or the whole border sags. Last week I lost an afternoon to one swirl that would not close. Mrs Abbott, who has run the finishing room since before you were apprenticed, looked at it over her spectacles and said, "Leave the hole, love. The hole is where the butterfly goes." So there is a little eyelet in the design, and beside it Mr Pickering has had the girls stitch three butterflies in thread dyed teal and rose pink, which he insists are the only colours anyone in London will want this season.

I know what you will say. You always said the trade was all grey and grit. Yet I walked to the Lace Market yesterday with a sample over my arm, and a gentleman in a good coat stopped me on the steps and asked whether the flowers were real. I said no, sir, they are only what the hands remember.

Write back and tell me the ship has docked safely. Keep the letter short. I have a frame to keep running.

Yours, Ada