I’ve been cutting away at tiny lino blocks to print words onto fabric and I’ve been using up offcuts as lino is expensive. The grey has been fine but I started on a brown lino block earlier and it’s much harder than the grey and quite slippery too. It’s not really suitable for the rounded text I’ve used so it’s back to the grey lino tomorrow.
scribblah 
Have you thought of getting all artistic with a Dremel ?
Would make short work of gouging and hand routing.
An attachment like one of these perhaps. Or a flexible drive.
https://www.dremel.com/en_US/products/-/show-product/tools/565-multipurpose-cutting-kit
https://www.dremel.com/en_US/products/-/show-product/tools/225-01-flex-shaft-attachment
I’ve got a Dremel and I occasionally use it for woodblocks, but these small linos are really too small to be able to use it accurately and also I really like the marks the hand gouges make on the lino 🙂