Small pink bow tattoo with a black outline and grey centre knot on the side of a finger, shown on a hand with teal nail polish.

Small pink bow tattoo on a finger

Hand · Mixed · Photo

A tiny bow sits on the side of a finger, filled with pink and outlined in black, with a grey knot at the centre. The linework is bold and even, and the grey shading gives the knot some depth. The bow is centred on a pale hand against a plain background, with teal nail polish in the upper right.

Hand Bow Ribbon

Find an artist for this

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 lift in Harrow Court has been broken since March, so Mrs Okonedo and I take the stairs with our shopping, counting the floors out loud as if someone might check. My own shopping is mostly thread. I run a sewing table from the flat on the eleventh floor, mending school blazers and taking in curtains for people who would rather pay me than climb down to the dry cleaner's on the high street.

Keep reading

Last Thursday a girl came up with a grey cardigan, a missing button and a satin ribbon pulled loose from her plait. She was nine, perhaps ten, and she wanted it fixed before her nan noticed. I took the ribbon from her and looked at the frayed end. I told her I could make it new. She watched me pinch the satin between my fingers and fold it into loops, and when I pulled the knot tight in the middle she asked why it had to be so tight. I said a bow tied loosely comes undone on the stairs.

When I handed it back she didn't put it in her hair. She wound it round her finger twice and tucked the end under, the way you'd keep a ring you were afraid of losing. Then she went down the stairs two at a time, and I stood at the kitchen window and watched her cross the car park, past the chained-up bins and the pigeons waiting for the bread van.

She came back on Monday for the button. The ribbon was gone from her finger and her plait was bare. I asked where her bow had gone, and she shrugged and said her nan had put it in the wash. I still have the offcut in my drawer, pink satin gone soft at the edges, the knot a little grey with dust, and I have never told her that the lift is still broken.