Black ink tattoo of a vintage sewing machine with CAROLINA lettering on the body, placed on the upper arm in an engraved style.

Vintage sewing machine on upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed vintage sewing machine with a thread spool on top and decorative scrollwork on the base, with the word CAROLINA printed across the machine body. The design uses fine hatching and solid black outlines to suggest an engraving, and it is rendered entirely in black ink and grey tones. The tattoo sits on the outer upper arm against a plain pale background, with a white lace top visible at the edge of the frame.

Upper arm Spool Thread Scrollwork Lettering

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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 Nell, The machine came up the pass on Tomas's cart the week the snow went off the Bwlch, wrapped in an old horse blanket and smelling of paraffin. It is your grandmother's Carolina, the one you used to think was a person because of the name cast in curling letters across its flank. I set it on the kitchen table under the window, where the light comes off the scree, and I have not yet had the heart to oil it.

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The spool still had its thread, black and brittle, wound the way she always wound it with the tail tucked under. I drew it free and it came away in one piece, which I took for a sign of something, though I could not tell you what. Underneath the bed plate someone had scratched a date, 1931, and a pair of initials I don't recognise. Tomas says the dealer in Llanberis swore it had never been used for anything but hemming church linen.

I tried it last night with a scrap of your cousin's grey wool. The needle went down with that small sure click and the hand wheel turned as easily as a cart on a dry road. The stitch ran straight for six inches. Then the thread snapped, and I sat there in the lamplight with the wind pressing on the glass, laughing at myself like a fool.

Come up at Easter and bring your own thread. We'll get the bobbin right together, the way she taught us both, and you can tell me what you want the scrollwork for. I have kept the base swept clean of dust. Love, Aunt Ffion.