I am meant to be folding laundry...

[sciatrix]

...but instead am catching up on DW discussions and indulging in my most recent expensive obsession, which is fountain pens. I do a lot more writing by hand now that I can simultaneously go "oh it's so pretty!!!!" and marvel at my ink and paper, or carefully select the ink I wish to use at each given time,

Right now, I'm going "I WANT A STUB NIB WITH A BIG RESERVOIR AND A SHADY INK. WITH SPARKLES. YEAH." and considering making a couple of purchases. (Well, and I'm also eyeing this Noodler's Creaper which has a flexible nib that will let me vary how thick the ink is as I write depending on how hard I press, but the reviews are so variable that I can't work out whether it's worth trying.)

But yeah--I think my deal right now is that I really want to play with shading inks and play with the color variation in a lot of fountain pen inks, and also take notes for work at the same time. And I think italic nibs work really well for me in a way that other nib thicknesses don't always.

Right now, I'm spending a lot of time mooshing my nose up against the swabs at Mountain of Ink and daydreaming about the subtle color variations that I would definitely get to see and play with if I went out and bought all the inks.

I mean. Look at this!



They're so pretty. I keep wondering if I should just go ahead and get some paintbrushes, just to play with the shading of the inks on paper as a purely aesthetic pleasure.

Comments

[sylvaine]

Oh wow *______* I write exclusively with my fountain pen, but mostly because it's the only way to make my handwriting legible at all xD;; I'm terribly fond of calligraphy and always wanted to get into as a teen when I had nowhere near the funds for it, and these days I've kind of given up on my handwriting and that includes calligraphy. XD but I am still so enamoured by all the tools and by the results!

[sciatrix]

Oh, my handwriting is atrocious. I like the inks and the colors anyway, though!

[lovepeaceohana]

Ugh those are super pretty.

[sciatrix]

god I know right

[aurumcalendula]

Ooh! Those are gorgeous!

[sciatrix]

IKR?

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Now and then, I think about getting back into fountain pens, but generally end up just extending my quality pencil collection instead.

[sciatrix]

What kinds of quality pencils do you play with? I am looking at maybe buying the spouse a lead holder for a birthday, but haven't ever looked at pencils beyond that.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Currently into Palomino Blackwings, which are like taking your coffee with real cream after a week of skim, and some of the Mitsubishi writing pencils.

[sciatrix]

Ooh. I have heard good things about those.

[cimorene]

I kinda don't like the Lamy Safari but I love its stub nib.

I feel like Noodler's pens are so cheap that they're pretty much worth it even though the quality control is variable. The odds seem to be good that a novice can have fun with it, and there are those simpler fixes people have tried that have ameliorated some of the common issues. I've gone and bought the supplies for 'nib tuning' recently but I haven't really gotten brave enough to try to fix my Ahab yet though. (It worked okay but was kind of too wet to begin with - like I didn't want to use it in clothes I care about, and I'd want a pile of tissues and blotting paper handy when I was writing with it. And the railroading got worse over time, so it definitely needs fixing now.)

[sciatrix]

Huh! I've never had a Lamy, but poked at one once in a Barnes and Noble. Most of the time I am writing with Pilot Metropolitans, a TWSBI Eco, any of a number of Platinum Preppies or my treasured finicky TWSBI Vac Mini, which I love because it is small like my tiny stubby child hands but am growing furious with because it keeps stopping my ink flow. I need to do some fine-tuning it. Even the TWSBI Eco often feels too wide, although maybe I just need to stop trying to post it and/or try the new Eco-T without the barbs near the nib. Or.... something.

The Ahab is way too big for me to use comfortably--T has one and I'm skeptical--but the Creaper looks appealingly narrow. I also keep eyeing the Kakuno Sports with some interest; even though I'm a firm bottled inks partisan, I found out quite by accident that they have converters now, which for some reason I hadn't previously realized was the case.

[cimorene]

1. Pilot Metropolitans are a bit harder to get hold of in Europe - or rather, if you care about what color they are, and they've only been available in unappealing colors since I got into fountain pens without shipping from outside the EU. But also, I don't really love the cigar shape, although I am eager to try out their nib quality. I bought one for my sister this holiday season, so I'll be interested to hear her review. Notably, their nib sections are interchangeable with Pilot's Plumix calligraphy nibs, which, however, aren't the same as stub nibs because they're proper square-edged calligraphy nibs, and a very tiny but sharp-edged nib is a bit harder to write with than a stub (although you can grind it into one yourself with the nib tools I mentioned - it's supposedly pretty easy, but again, that sounds a bit intimidating to me, at least to start with?)

1. I had a TWSBI Eco stub nib. The pen broke after not all that long, and granted I was a novice when I bought it, but still, I felt it was a bit overpriced for the quality level, particularly the nib's. The piston fill system was fine, and I definitely would rather all my pens were full-size pistons without converters; buuuuut the stub nib was not as good as the Kaweco Sport stub and far below the Lamy Safari stub.

3. My hands are giant (or rather, long and spindly - my wife says they're like Gollum's) so we have the opposite problems there. I'm less than 5'7" but my fingers are longer than my 6'2" (and lanky) Finnish brother in law's.

4. I really want a TWSBI Vac in spite of all the aforementioned doubts about the brand's price points because they seem to be very good about quality control issues and replacements and I just really want to try a vaccuum fill. (And now I know I'd have to treat it with kid gloves. I didn't have Preppies to toss around and get banged up then.)

5. The Kaweco Sport (Kakuno is Pilot's child calligraphy pen!) mini-converters are terrible. They have QC issues you can find about if you search FPN boards, but even when they work right they don't work that well. I actually own three Sports - I like them a lot even though they are a bit uncomfortably small on occasion - in spite of some nib problems (my sister has 2, and both of us have perfect gold-nibbed ones while the silver nibs suck, and FPN bears this out - apparently they tend to over-smooth their silver nibs, resulting in widespread issues, especially baby's bottom. This is why I bought the nib-tuning supplies). Anyway, the gold nib ones is my favorite, so I'd highly recommend it, but the italic nibs are all silver. ANYWAY, I got a tip from FPN - you can easily refill standard international or long standard international cartridges using a syringe. I've switched to doing this for my Sports and yeah, it's much better.

6. I THINK the Ahab and the Nib Creaper have the same nib section, so they should write the same.

[darchildre]

Diamine's Ancient Copper is my favorite ink ever. It is so pretty that it makes even taking notes at the most boring work meetings a little more fun.

[sciatrix]

I have been using their Caramel Sparkle as my main go-to lately, and can confirm it too is lovely. I need to make some ink purchases--the Noodler's Bernanke Red and Eel Greune are both just... more workaday than I'm enjoying right now, but I keep figuring that I just need/want a step up in Pretty.

[horusporus]

Oh those are some gorgeous samples! If you're in the market to find good paper to go with the pens, I particularly recommend any maker that uses tomoe river paper like Midori and Hobonichi, or the clairefontaine paper like clairefontaine and rhodia (especially if you like wet nibs)

[horusporus]

You could also look at Japanese pens as well, their largest nibs still feel narrower than other makers.

[wellthisisnice]

The illustrator in this video talks about fountain pens for waterproof ink and i thought of you :)