Friday Finds - Book embroidery by Jillian Tamaki

A virtual find today, and one we are extremely excited about.
We stumbled upon this through a tweet from @CrankyPressman - an openly stern and old fashioned letterpress print shop and bindery in Chicago, Illinois. They have a fantastic website and blog and take pride in 'breaking their backs to make you look good'. Great stuff.

The tweet linked to a blog posted back in March this year, but we just had to blog about this after stumbling upon it today.
Jillian Tamaki is an illustrator and cartoonist based in Brooklyn, NY. She teaches Art at the School of Visual Arts there and illustrates for magazines, books, newspapers and websites. She has also had a few books of her personal work published, including her debut publication with the always fantastic Drawn and Quarterly.

These pieces are particularly magnificent. They are not going to be sold as embroidered books(I don't think), but as high quality printed and embossed covers of these penguin classics. Not sure if they are available over here, but we're almost certain it would be worth the trip to pick one up!

More from Jillian on here blog and website.

Friday Finds - The Art of Lettering

This week a very informative and detailed book from 1947 all about the art of lettering. This being an old book, it smells completely wonderful - warm, dusty and with a hint of granny attic. Inside the pages are stained through time and a little yellow, however the technical information is astounding for such a small book. Each section states the rules that must be followed strictly to achieve beautiful type. For all you type geeks out there, this is a great book with the history of type, monogram examples and letter creation the old fashioned way. Oh so pretty, I shall be geeking out over it this weekend.

Friday finds - Coloured Gravure Lettercards

Today we have some rather delightful vintage lettercards we found at the giant flea market held at the Bath and West show ground - you never know what you might find there (fortunately no fleas, giant or otherwise). These are a wonderfully colourful treat, lettercards for Dunster and Polperro, delicately letterpress printed on the outer envelope with some beautiful drawings for land, air and sea. Inside each is a concertina of pictures showing various locations around the town. Perfect when you want to send something more than a postcard on your travels.

Wishing a pleasant Good Friday to you all!

 You can just about see the delicate letterpress texture in this lovely linen paper - most satisfying!

And all made in the UK too.

We might just have to make some as a keepsake from your travels to Bath - watch this space.

Friday finds - Pen nib boxes

This week our Friday find was, in fact, found by my mum (thanks mum!). She is always on the lookout - much like we are - for lovely and interesting things, particularly those associated with paper goods. She was certainly successful when she found this collection of pen nib boxes, some of which still have their original nibs inside. My favourite is one from Perry & Co, which states
'Avoid common ink'. We certainly will.

Friday finds - a distraction.

A visual find this week, and a quick one. Been so busy I simply haven't had time to scour the markets or antique shops for exciting goods and trinkets, much to my dismay.
Anyway this image is worth I think, one that has been gracing my desktop for the last few days.
Simply, a distraction.

Friday finds - Parker 51's.

A lovely handwritten note found its way through our letterbox here at M.I. H.Q. last week. A note so splendidly written I could only wonder what kind of instrument would form such an exquisite pen stroke!
Being fans of everything vintage and antique, we jumped at the chance to be able to have on our shelves some beautiful old Parker 51/61 fountain pens.

We were visited by Mr O'Conner shortly after receiving the letter, and were shown a delightful array of vintage parker pens. Through much deliberation and discussing we decided on the few that really caught our eye. I never knew Parker pens could be such handsome articles.

This is probably not a find I hear you say, but more something that found us.

These lovely Parker pens are now available to buy in our store.

33 Walcot Street, Bath, BA1 5BN (01225 333 004).

Friday finds - Paper ephemera.

Two fascinating paper finds today - What a treat!
With an idea to use for some kind of inspiration within our designs, or perhaps just because they look so lovely. We found these beautiful little indian matchbox labels at a market sometime last year.
Mainly featuring chickens and ducks, I'm unsure of the significance or huge popularity of avian images within the matchbox branding world. Any ideas? Such warm toasty colours too, hmmmm.

When we were searching for nice vintage display boxes and tins, before we opened our little paper boutique, we found these beautiful old bus tickets in one of the tins. A lovely find, need I say more?

Friday finds - Bandages tin.

Some of you may be thinking that we've been raiding derelict old hospitals going by this weeks and last weeks finds. Well, we haven't - although I can only imagine the endless amounts of fascinating things you might find. Next week will not be medical related at all - that's a promise.

Anyway, we found this lovely tin on good old ebay, after wondering the antique section.
It's a tin for waterproof dressings, but as you can see just happened to have a lovely selection of calligraphy nibs inside! Including (luckily for me), some left handed nibs. Now to decide what to use it for...

What a lovely thing.

Friday finds - Medicinal bottles.

About a year ago we looked after a house belonging to an elderly relative of mine in Kent. She was a lady who didn't spend a lot, and kept things as they were. Living in the house was like stepping back in time. The decor, furniture, ornaments all originating from the 1920-30's.

A dusty place, but full of fascinating old trinkets and vessels. In the bathroom there was a lovely old cabinet, full of ancient medical looking bottles and measuring glasses.

As the house was being sold, they had to be saved. They now sit above my desk at the shop, where I often wonder what would happen if I drank any of them.

Illustrator Brendan Wenzel

A quick blog of the beautiful and hilarious illustrations from New York based illustrator Brendan Wenzel. He has a fantastic style, fairly reminiscent of Eric Carle's wonderfully textured colouring work. More pleasure for the eyes on this sunny Wednesday afternoon.

Friday finds - Nautical

This weeks finds are a small collection of nautical themed pictures that have been exciting my eyes in the last few days. These are covers from steamships and cruisers from 1936-1960. An age of glorious design. The kind of design that we both love here and always endeavour to work towards - simple, classic and beautiful.

1. Timetable cover from the Italian cruiser/steamship(?) 'Adria' from 1936. Beautiful typography and illustration by an artist named 'Gauss' c
2. Another cover from the 'Adria', also by 'Gauss', 1936
3. Timetable cover from a Finnish steamship from 1960, slightly strange but strangely beautiful
4. French line passenger list from 1935

Friday finds

Hopefully this will be an regular edition for Fridays, be it actual physical finds or just things we might come across online that tickles our fancy.


We regularly try to visit the Bath and West show ground where they host a fine giant flea market.
There's usually quite a lot to trawl through, although on this particular day the outdoor furniture sellers didn't last long due to the rain.

 We spent most of our time in the indoor area searching through lots of old trinkets and bits and pieces. We didn't collect much but we did come across these beautiful invoices and letterheads from the 20's/30's/50's and even one from 1870 - these will eventually grace our new big padded pin board which is coming soon to our shop walls together with a slight refit.