Black lettering on a woman's ribs reading 'she believed she could so she did' in a typewriter-style font, set in a stacked, left-aligned block.

Typewriter quote along the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo of the words 'she believed she could so she did' is set in a typewriter-style serif font, stacked over five lines on the side of the ribcage. The lettering is solid black with crisp edges and no shading, and the photograph shows no colour ink. The subject wears a black lace bra and a dark loose top, with the arm raised out of frame on the right against a plain white background.

Lettering Ribs Quote Word Text Typewriter font

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

Nell Harrower had carried the typewriter up the Kennet in a tarpaulin bundle, because the lock-keepers at Newbury had laughed when she said she meant to write the navigation company a letter they would have to answer. The machine sat on the bench of the day cabin, its keys worn pale at the centre, and every morning before the kettle she fed a sheet of foolscap into the carriage and let the bell ring.

Keep reading

The letters went to the Thames and Kennet Navigation Company, asking why the Corvina had been turned back at Hungerford for want of a form nobody had heard of. The replies grew shorter each time. Mr Ashdown, the clerk, wrote that the matter was closed. Nell typed back that she had read the Act twice, that one clause could be read two ways, and that she had chosen the other.

By March the cabin smelt of ink and coal smoke, and the lock-keeper's boy had taken to reading her drafts aloud from the towpath. Pinned above the machine was a line she had typed on the first morning and never taken down: 'she believed she could so she did.' She had typed it the way you type a shopping list, quickly and without thinking. Only later did she understand that she had needed it on paper before she could make herself believe it.

The form arrived on a Tuesday, folded inside an envelope with Ashdown's name crossed out in red. Nell read it standing on the gunwale, then went below, rolled a clean sheet into the carriage, and typed a single word, 'Sailing', and underlined it twice with the bar.