The Pen In The Hat is an event that takes place periodically, where each person who wishes to participate enters their name into a "hat" of sorts.
When the event starts, you are matched randomly with another participating member.
Your task is to create a pen (generally following the theme guidelines ... in this case, fall, autumn, winter, and the holidays), and select 2 blanks (or more) from among your stock to send to your recipient. Their task is to reciprocate this exchange with a pen of their making and blanks of their selection.
The event is supposed to mimic a large gathering of penturners who all show up at one place and put 1 pen each into a "hat", and then randomly drawing a pen later to see what they get (with no chance of getting their own pen back, of course). The other difference is that whoever you send a pen to will get the chance to send one back directly to you.
The IAP regularly holds events like this and others ... You only need to keep your eyes open and look for them!
(side note: You are NOT limited to just 1 pen and 2 blanks sent to your partner. Posting a picture of what you received is part of the tradition, but if you can't due to technical reasons, you should keep a few pictures of what you sent so that you can post it for them.)
For example ... My partner this event was Wyone. This is what I sent to him:
Hope to see you participating in the next one!
