Black line drawing flash design of two swallows, a spool of thread with scissors and a needle, and a banner reading CRAFT OR DIE, in a traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallows, thread spool and CRAFT OR DIE banner

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing of two swallows, one at the top left and one at the bottom right, framing a spool of thread with a pair of scissors and a needle. A ribbon banner across the middle reads CRAFT OR DIE, with a further ribbon tail at the lower left. The linework is bold and even on a plain white background, with no shading or colour.

Traditional Swallow Spool Thread Scissors Needle Banner Ribbon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maureen, you were right about the hall. Someone had hung Mrs Pargeter's old sampler over the tea urn, the one with the swallows and the spool, and I stood under it for ten minutes pretending to read the names on the honours board.

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Nobody could agree on what the motto meant. Gary from the year above said it was a warning, that she'd have had you in detention for a crooked hem. You remember how she said it while she snipped our loose threads with the big brass shears, click, click, as if she were cutting our excuses in half. I told him it was a dare, not a threat, and he laughed and bought me a sherry I didn't want.

I didn't tell anyone I still have her spool. The blue cotton, half used, the one she pressed into my hand the last afternoon and said a thing unfinished is only a thing waiting. I've kept it in the drawer with my good scissors ever since. This April I found two swallows building in the eaves outside my bedroom window, the same pair as the ones on that sampler, I'd swear to it, with their forked tails cut sharp as pinking shears. They come back to the same place every year when the winter's done with them.

So I've started a shirt for Gary's grandson, though I've no idea why I'm doing it. Come up for the weekend. I'll bring the spool and the big shears, and we can finish something properly for once.