I was a girl scout through high school and I still have my sash with the badges I earned for things like camping, backpacking and baking. Imagine my delight last Saturday at the SFCB Roadworks craft fair when my friends Jennie and Carolee, of Pod Post, showed up with their new merit badges for letterpress! I immediately bought a set and today I’ll sew them on my printers’ apron.
That’s Carolee on the right, modelling her sash with another set of their badges — these for bookbinding. They also have a set for zine making.
The letterpress badges are labeled “Level One: Set Type’, ‘Level Two: Mind Your P’s (and Q’s)’ and ‘Level Three: Press Time’. Carolee said I could wear the Level Three badge, even though I print on an inferior C&P floor model and not the coveted (and pictured) Vandercook!
Oh! I was never a Girl Scout (or Girl Guide as they’re called in Australia) but even I’m excited about these badges!! Fabulous!
Oh, bless you, Green Chair, for mentioning the adorable Pod Post Girls. Truly they are the best bookartists ever to don tattersall and operate a stapler. They’ve allowed me to sew the zine badges to my messenger bag even though I am mainly known for my typos. Who knows, maybe the new set will be in my future.
Yippee! Thanks to Green Chair Press for mentioning Pod Post! As always, it is a joy and delight to see and discuss all manner of book art and letterpress-ish persuasions with you…
I would have stayed in the Boyscouts if we’d had cool merit badges like these!
There should be a badge for “throwing in.” On Fridays we used to sort our foundry type back into the drawers. It was called “throwing in.”
I never could tell the d from the p from the q from the b, so I suppose I wouldn’t have earned the badge anyway.