My friend Chantal, a fellow fountain pen aficionado who I met through Pen Night, is a talented artist and illustrator; after seeing my letterpress in action in July, she set out to see if she could take her pen and ink artwork and have it turned into a custom die, suitable for use in letterpress printing.

Today was the day to take her experiment out for a ride on the press; while I will leave it to her to reveal the result of the main event, she surprised me with the lovely gift of an additional die that she designed and had made, an image that, I think you’ll agree, lovingly captures the spirit of me and my printery:

Of course I had no choice but to print a whole big bunch of them, on Artists’s Tile Set acid-free cards from Peter Pauper Press in New York:

The unexpected gift, from the hand and the heart, is the best gift of all. Thank you, Chantal.