You might think that after carving three medieval inspired block printing stamps rather recently, which were all based on extant printed fabrics from the 12th to 13th century, that I might have done enough stamp cutting for a while. But no, I have by far not have had enough from cutting block printing stamps yet.
And it definitely didn’t help that my dear sweetheart ordered a nice set of good cutting tools as Christmas present for me. Yeah, he is indeed a terrible enabler when it comes to my projects and, as you can imagine, I definitely do not object to that… 
Oh yeah, I got new tools for Christmas! I am tremendously excited! *happybounce* And that is great as the affordable basic linoleum cutting set which I initially got when I picked up this craft again after more than 25 years, finally started to drive me crazy. But please don’t take me wrong. Basic, affordable tools have their advantages. Some might even call them “cheap” but in my opinion the word “affordable” has a much nicer sound and feel to it. These basic tool sets tend to cost as much as one or two magazines or what we easily spend on some snacks without even wasting a second thought about it.
These affordable basic tools definitely help us to save some money during the initial stage of learning a new craft or at the beginning a new project. They help us to find out if a certain technique or craft is exciting or interesting enough to keep on practising for further development or – if not – we simply decide to put the tools aside or give them to someone else so we can focus on something else. Their rather low price spare us the nagging and rather unsatisfactory feeling that we have to continue with something we actually quite dislike so we don’t have to admit that we wasted a lot of money.
However, once we get better and pass the initial stage of the craft, some of us will soon realize that a basic tool set isn’t cutting it. And well, concerning my linoleum cutting set, my favorite knive was literally not properly cutting through the linoleum anymore. And here for me the same rules apply as in the kitchen – there is nothing more dangerous than working with a blade that is just not sharp enough as you have to apply much more force than you normally would which also reduces the actual control you have over the tool and therefore doubles or triples the possibility that an injury occurs. And the last thing we need or want while working on a project is an injury, isn’t it… 
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And for the next step of my project I need to replace my ironing board as well as my iron. Then I will be finally able to iron the yellow and blue raw silk which I want to print. Yeah, a good project takes time but I hope to be able to start with the new tunic for my husband soon. And then, after his tunic project, I hope to have enough block printing practice to start working at a dress for myself. But please don’t tell my husband that his tunic is “just” a practice piece, though he actually might not mind it as long as he gets a new tunic out of it… But – psssst – don’t spill the beans…
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