2019 State of the Collection
The year is drawing to a close and it’s been a good one! I hope everyone had a wonderful 2019. In this post I wanted to post an update about my pens and which samples were purchased as full-sized bottles.
Top 2019 Inks:
My top inks for the year were Diamine Honey Burst, Troublemaker Milky Ocean, Taccia Uguisu, Robert Oster Velvet Storm, and Taccia Ao-guro. I love the flow and shading of these inks.
I didn’t expect my 2019 palette to be so autumn-themed! Perhaps next year will be brighter.
2019 Notable Pen-Events:
Started this blog! This started as an idea to share my thoughts on ink colors and pens. It eventually migrated from Wordpress to Squarespace. I’m not a technical person by any means so I’m very proud of the formatting and design.
On a relevant note— transcribed Call of the Wild by Jack London. I’ve never written so much in my life.
Curated a pen collection that makes sense (to me). My interest in fountain pens began around a year ago. Since then, many pens have entered and left the collection. I’ve learned a lot about my preferences regarding nibs, feedback, and pen size. My collection decreased from 16, to 6, and then finally sits at a 23-25 (depending on my next purchases)..
Discovered the world of artisans and nibmeisters. I took a leap by with my first customized pen from Bokumondoh. This was followed by handcrafted pens from Bonecrusher 7 Studios, HardyPen Wrights and Walltown Craftworks. All of these artists are very talented and have made me one happy client!
Found Dan at The Nibsmith. He opened a new door for me as I had no idea you could customize pens exactly the way you wanted them to be!
** some of my pens are overseas so I will add updated pictures.
Art (Doodles): I started this in the later half of December. It turns out coloring is a great way to relieve stress.
New Year (Pen-Year) Resolutions:
Hard limit of 30 pens. (Initially I wanted to stay at 20 pens for 2020, but quickly realized this was a futile effort. Ideally I would like to hover around 25 but will give myself some leeway. Who knows what enticing pens will be released next year!)
Attend one pen show.
Continue writing and sharing my love of inks and pens to the community.
Thank you everyone for reading this blog. I’m excited to see what 2020 brings and can’t wait to have a wonderful year!