Black line drawing flash design of a thread spool with crossed needles, a crown, scissors and a banner reading Make Things, in a traditional ornamental style.

Spool, needles and Make Things banner

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

The design shows a large thread spool at the centre, with two crossed needles above it beneath a small crown. Scissors and a button sit on either side, framed by scrolling ornamental swirls, and a banner along the bottom reads MAKE THINGS. It is rendered in clean black outline with no shading or colour.

Traditional Lettering Spool Thread Needle Crown Scissors Button Banner Lettering Swirl

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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

Dear Tom, the shop smells of wet wool again because the boiler on Mackerel Lane has given up for the winter. I have moved the big wooden spool onto the counter so customers can see it from the door. Mrs Pennock came in this morning wanting her husband's sea coat taken in, and she stood looking at the reels in the window as though they might answer for her.

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You asked in your last letter whether I still keep the old tailor's ledger. I do. Your grandfather wrote in it for forty years in a hand like barbed wire, and on the last page he pressed in a stamp he had cut himself: a crown over two crossed needles, with the words underneath that he said every apprentice should chant before their first hem. Scissors on one side, a button on the other, because he said a tailor who forgets buttons will be known for it. He drew the swirls around everything because he could never leave a plain edge alone.

The boats come in at four, and the fishermen's wives bring their oilskins before the next tide. Last Thursday a boy of about nine came in holding a torn kite and asked if we could make things fly again. I told him we could not, but we could make it stronger. He sat on the stool and watched me stitch the tail with the red thread you bought me, and when he left he took the brass button with the anchor from the tin and said he would pay me back in mackerel.

I have not told you this because I did not want you to think I had gone soft. But I think the shop only stays open because of that stamp and that tin of buttons. Come home at Easter and bring your own thimble. There is a coat that needs its sleeves, and my eyes are not what they were.

Love, Nan