love at first crank

I remember walking into my first letterpress class almost a year ago, filled with excitement. I was THAT girl in class. You know? The one that everyone is super annoyed with because she won’t stop raising her hand and asking questions. I was thrilled that I was actually going to learn how to letterpress on a mysterious machine that I later learned was called a Vandercook. Vandercooks were actually used as proof presses back in the day, but nowadays artists use them for pretties of all sorts, you can read more about them here. I’ve come so far since then, now I have a lot (not anywhere near all) of printer jargon down. Which I’ll share as I post. But for now this post is dedicated to the Vandie that changed my life. I remember my first big project - 2 color thank you cards printed on Crane’s Lettra in Pearl. A really ambitious project for a first timer since there were 2 ink colors and with 2 ink colors you need to make sure your registration is flawless. I was in class for 6 hours and totally forgot that it was midnight on a school night, I had to get them done and I was having way too much fun to stop. Cranking that cottony paper through the press was so exciting and the fact that it came out looking like this made it even more exciting. You never forget your first crank on your first Vandie.