Welcome to Creekhollow, Our New Print Studio

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Subscribers to our newsletter know we’ve been building out a small, dedicated studio space for our expanding needs as a print shop, a space that is dedicated to just our print business and one that fits our vibe of handcrafted products made in a similar fashion as the masters of old used to use…that space is now finished.

Introducing, Creekhollow, the official print space for Mythril Made!

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For several months we’ve been organizing the equipment and tools we have, and acquiring some “new” (new to us) items to complete our studio, namely two large type cabinets with metal type for our custom type products and the centerpiece of Mythril Made, self-named “Pippin”, the red 1891 Chandler and Price Press which will be the work horse for nearly all our letterpress printing. We acquired the press some months ago but had it under wraps while the rest of the studio was given a remodel and then some time to set it up, test, fix a few items, and calibrate, but Pippen is up and working beautifully and we’ll be back in full swing this coming week.

We’re very excited about Creekhollow and what it will mean for us going forward. Having a space that is dedicated to Mythril Made, and printing in particular, will allow us to turn out new products more quickly, experiment more easily, and customize our business to what we and our customers want. In addition to expanding our line of sublimation printed products (i.e. our bookmarks, coasters, mugs, and full color products), we’ll be creating more of our own paper, are working on some custom book publishing options, and developing new letterpress cards, stationary, and notecards using custom type, more unique paper styles, and custom ink blends.

Why Creekhollow?

Readers of The Lord of the Rings might recognize a similar name, Crickhollow which was a Hobbit dwelling located in Buckland where Frodo and others spent some time before heading off on their journey to Rivendell. Our little space reminded us of Crickhollow as it has similar features, a mossy roof, sits near a creek, and is tucked into a small wooded area.

Stay tuned to this space of course or even better, sign up for our newsletter for subscriber only discounts and freebies or follow us on Etsy for early announcements of new products.

Handset Type and Bookbinder Finds

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Last month in our newsletter we announced a new product line debuting this summer, hand set letterpressed personalized notecards and prints. Hand set type is how the masters of old did it, one letter at a time and in our endeavor to keep moving towards ever more handmade from scratch products, we wanted to begin working with hand set type.  It’s a time intensive process but allows us to create completely personalized and near 100% handcrafted products. Why not all 100%?  Well, we still need to acquire the hand set type fonts which are individual symbols, letters, and typefaces cast in metal…and wow did we find a goldmine of hand set type a few weeks ago!

We’re not big fans of social media generally but sometimes it pays off as we found a 99 year old book binder in Portland who was getting rid of some old inventory. Grossenbacher Brothers, Inc. (GBI) posted some classic Hamilton Printers Type Cabinets for sale on Facebook marketplace and once we found them we couldn’t believe our fortune. We acquired two full cases with about 40 separate type faces, and got them for near a steal (see gallery below for images of our type cabinets and the GBI shop)! Terry and Marcie at GBI were very friendly and helpful in letting us poke around their warehouse which is a museum of old book binding and printing equipment as well.  Certainly if you’re in need of traditional book binding done with a lifetime of experience and attention to detail GBI is worth a call.  We’ll be doing inventory and trying to identify the type faces for the next few months but this really opens up the options for us and gives us a lot of flexibility in the style of fonts we can use.  We feel very lucky to have found GBI, are thankful for them being so helpful, and we were all glad these classic type faces are going to a good home.

If you want to know when our hand set type products are available please sign up for our newsletter and thank you.