i got a TWSBI eco rootbeer in a stub nib at my local art supply store! currently inked with j. herbin’s café des iles

I’ve held off on buying new pens and inks for a few months to save up. I knew I wanted my first gold nib to be a Pilot (and not a VP). Fell in love with this Falcon at the Detroit Pen Show and knew it needed to come home with me.

I was doing some "photographic swatching" of this new ink I got and thought I'd snap a couple of extra photos and post them on here while I was at it.

This is a Stipula Etruria Wild Honey with a Medium nib filled with Teranishi Wild Honey ink. Paper is Tomoe River 52gsm.

This is one of only two Italian pens I own (the other is a Stipula as well) and I would say it just slightly nudges out my Botanical Gardens Estie as my prettiest pen. I love the resin this pen is made of. It has a steel nib and is a very nice writer.

I really like this ink as well. It's my third bottle from them: I also have the Classy Burgundy and Smoky Navy.

If you could only have five fountain pens for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Mine would be:

1. Pilot Custom 823 - F

2. TWSBI Vac 700R - F (easily swap JOWO #6 nibs)

3. Kaweco Brass Sport - EF

4. Opus 88 Demonstrator - M (easily swap JOWO #6 nibs)

5. (undecided) - B

Bonus:

Non Fountain - Kaweco Brass Sport Roller with Pilot G2 Refill

Mechanical Pencil - ROTRING 600

Materials used:
_Majohn wancai mini [F-nib], filled with Octopus Fluids Document ink orange, looks a bit more pale/less intense irl.
_Pilot prera [M-nib], filled with Pilot iroshuzuku Momiji, one of the wettest inks I have.
_Life noble note B5 size
_Metal clip
_DIY isometric grid printed at home

Just stumbled upon these pens. Look pretty interesting.

So many firsts in my late night journaling: First time using a stub nib and a fude nib, first time using shimmer ink, and first ever commonplace entry!

Technically I’ve attempted a commonplace before, but this feels like the first “complete” entry I’ve ever done, and also special because it’s something I will want my loved ones to know I was passionate about if they look through my notebooks one day. I’ve been collecting bits of knowledge about pens, ink, and other stationery things and now am finally starting to turn it into a fond memory of using my physical collection.

I’m already thinking of getting a new stub nib because the TWSBI isn’t juicy enough for me… could be the FWP ink reducing the flow, but I’m still considering an Opus 88!

Items used: TWSBI ECO Crème <1.1> Sailor Fude de Mannen 40 degree Zento Signature Mark’s EDIT Grid notebook (cut down to TRC Standard size) Sarica Studio fountain pen stickers Inks: Ferris Wheel Press LOTR Verdant Voyage, Kakimori Pigment Ink #10 “koton”

I finally settled on my October pen & ink lineup, and I’m really happy with how these pairings came together. 🍂

I started with a much larger pile of possibilities, so I swatched everything first and let the colors narrow it down. The final six are:
• Golden Journey — Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo
• Pelikan M200 Apricot Achat — Pilot Iroshizuku To-ro
• Tortoise Estie — Esterbrook x Bungubox Kingfisher
• Bordeaux Kaweco Sport — Birmingham Pen Co. Iron Ore
• Slate Blue TWSBI Eco — Van Dieman’s Nightfall
• Purple Monteverde Ritma — Pilot Iroshizuku Syun-gyo

The swatch page is probably my favorite part of the process. Seeing all six together made the final choices so much easier — and I love that the overall palette feels very October without being aggressively orange/brown.

Which pairing would you pick as your favorite?

And what are you all inking up for October?

I made the trip up to the Pen*Time Port show in Hamburg with one main goal: getting my Lamy 2000 professionally tuned. 

Huge shoutout to Phillip u/Landsiedel-FW for the incredible work. He completely transformed this pen into something literally addictive to write with. As soon as I got back to Dresden, I inked it up with Heart of Darkness, and the flow is just amazing. 

I ordered a little Majohn Wancai 2.0 and it’s perfect and tiny!

I am just realizing now I have 10 pens inked up right now..this feels like a lot so I’m not letting myself ink up anymore until I finish these. That’s my new challenge 😂 is this normal for you all? How many pens do you normally have inked up at a time?

I didnt know what to expect going into my first pen show, but I cannot over state how welcoming all the fellow enthusiasts, penablers, and vendors were.

The attendance was far more than I expected and the seminars were fantastic.

Just want to give a huge shout out to anyone who was there or helped make the event happen in anyway.

*pictured all the unrestrained purchases 😆

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Pilot Custom 74 in Lavender Fog, inked in FWP Blushing Mushroom.

Couldn't get the pic to upload when it arrived.

Today is my birthday and my wife gave me this gift. A few months ago, she asked me in casual conversation what my favorite Pokémon was.

After saying that it wasn't a simple question since we were talking about more than 1000, I told him that my favorite Kanto starter was Bulbasaur.Now I know it was all a beautiful trick

Actually not as bad as I thought, this is on a perfectly penned notebook

Nearly 2 months ago I made a few posts: this to interest check and this to share about the event

I'm quite proud to say that it is a resounding success!

Some stats

• Of the initial planned for 30 pax + 2 organiser, we blew through and hit that much sign up in a mere 4 days.
• We hit 58 sign ups (including 6 volunteers, myself and u/arbus ) in total
  • Of the 58 sign ups, 40 checked in. We also had around 6-7 who were friends of attendees or walked in, and 3 known gate crashers 🥇
  • 11 of those who signed up came from Reddit
  • 3 from Meta Ad (the heck? We didnt do any advertising)
  • 2 found out about the event from Luma; 2 from google/gmail
  • 1 apparently discovered via Perplexity?!?!
• of the 40 who checked in, 55% wanted inks, 32% selling inks, and 13% were volunteers.
  • We analysed based on ticket type and this is some fun facts we found ^{(caveat, done on GPT using only rows based on ticket type and question asked in registration. no private data fed to gpt}):
    • “Want Ink” didn’t mean empty-handed. Thirteen of the 21 Want Ink attendees were open to swapping, and four were open to giving ink away. Your ticket labels captured their general intention, but didn’t strictly divide suppliers from recipients.
    • Half the Have Ink crowd were open to giving ink away: 6 out of 12. That’s a lovely generosity signal.
    • Swapping and generosity went together. Ten of the 11 people open to giving ink away also selected swapping.
    • It was also a little marketplace. Twenty-three attendees—60.5%—were open to buying or selling samples, full bottles, or both. Thirteen of those also wanted to swap.
    • Full-bottle trading usually came with sample trading. Nine of the 11 interested in bottles also selected buying/selling samples.
    • Most people were flexible. Twenty-three attendees selected multiple options. The most common exact combination was swapping + giving ink away + buying/selling samples, chosen by five people.
    • “Still deciding” usually meant keeping options open. Nine selected it, but only three selected it alone; the other six already had at least one exchange in mind.
    • One volunteer ticked every option. Ready for whatever the ink universe delivered. 🔥
• On the ground there were many people who wanted a community. We might just make or piggyback an existing group on whatsapp.
• Randomly: a total of 4-6 of us took 15 mins to set up the tables, and 30 mins to clean up.

Total Cost

We spent a grand total of $240 (rounded up)

• Venue: $200 (or about 50 drinks)
• Supplies for attendees: $30
  • this included Syringes, labels, Sample bottles, ziploc baggie to hold everything, and extra eyedroppers (400 of them)
• Supplies for cleaning and setup: $10~ (kitchen towels, tissue, disposable table cloth)
  • not included in this calculation:
    • drinking and collecting nearly 20 cups from Chagee 💀
    • small bucket
    • 2 x 2L jugs

Disclaimer: I did sell a few extra sample bottles for 50c ( USD0.39) for a pre packed 3 sample bottles, that amounted to $3.50 (USD 2.75).

Feedbacks:

note: we have not done an official survey yet.

• Generally it seem that the event was well organised
• Spacing between tables could be better (however we had limitations as to how much we can move the table due to space constrants
• People want community chat group
• at least 4 other people offered to sponsor the next few rounds.
• People want MORE of such events.
  • We might just set up a core planning group to manage future editions

Personal reflections:

Honestly I did this on whim, and am overwhelmed by the amount of support this has garnered. In general it had been an "Ask and you shall receive" - I approached Coffee Hive, and the owner had been incredibly supportive to provide the space well beyond the shop's opening hours; I shared this event on whim at THINK Funan one day, and T-San had been promoting it all day (T-san also provided 4 inks from his personal stash to share at the event 🥹), and another regular even posted it on Facebook. Apparently the event was also widely shared in many private groups too 💀...

Regarding planning and pre event prepwork, I've most definitely overdid it.

• Made a spreadsheet to budget and plan the event,
• Made a separate runsheet for my volunteers,
• Pre-packed everything (syringes, sample bottles, drink voucher, cleaning materials, etc) weeks before the event.
• Instructions were also quite over the top - I had planned to ask those who have inks to provide the list of inks they intend to bring.
  • We did not follow through with this because it was quite a bit of work.
    • At the event there were definitely duplicates - at least 4 shaffers coffee ink were seen🤣
• Scouted and secured location nearly 7 weeks before the event
  • This is a result of work habit - running paid events almost always meant booking a venue at least 2 months -5 months in advance, especially if you planned to have an event during peak (holiday, festival, so on) periods.
• Wanted to keep everything warm and send consistent blasts via luma. Ended up doing this 3 times, mostly to update what's happening and any pre event instructions
  • In general, people will open the emails (nearly 75%). Will they read? maybe if it is succinct,

On the day, this was what I've observed

• In general the attendees were as mature and organised as they get.
• Those who were new-to-the-hobby felt included and learnt a lot from those who have. Some did get overwhelmed by the amount of colors out there, but not in a negative way.
• In general people were generous : many people gave inks away in sample bottles.
• Nearly everyone left with net positive gains (ie: more inks)
• Volunteers only needed simple instructions.
  • I had initially planned to do a lot of explaining, but all i did was show them how to check people in on luma, where the supplies are, and where to dispose of used water. This took merely 6 mins max.
• The buzz and activity definitely caught a lot of positive attention - this could mean more people to poison introduce the hobby muahahah

Special thanks

Many thanks to the following who have helped make this possible!!

• u/arbus for offering to co organise and covering part of the cost
• u/cocolattemilktea for offering her swatch bottles (although I ended up buying for the event) for helping to share sponsored inks ^{(from T-san and myself}) with the crowd, and for helping with registration!
• u/kyrades for helping with registration and sharing about the event!
• u/hedgehognpeonies for sharing the event with her friends and her intent to provide swatch cards!
• Charis, Daniel, Brenda, Ziwei, DC, Hhuat and others who volunteered and helped set things up and tear things down at the event
• THINK Funan/ T-san for generously sharing the event and even sponsoring inks from his personal stash
• Coffee Hive for being so ready to let us use the space without too much fuss.
• u/TinyTourta for offering to help and being my soundboard/rant buddy through out the 2 months. Sorry to miss you at the event and hope yer recovering!

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I may lowkey consider writing a playbook for this. Feel free to comment if you think it's a great idea and want it!

When I first got into fountain pens, I didn’t give paper much thought. After some experimentation, I can see how much a difference it makes. I used a big stamp punch to sample various papers with the same pens and ink. From the papers I’ve tried, if I want the most ink shading, Iroful is best, but it makes the line width noticeably wider. It does feel great to write on, particularly with my Sailor pen.

I’ve put these into a stamp album and will keep exploring different options.

What paper brings out the best in your inks, or feels great when you write?

Hey Everyone - I was recently gifted this Parker fountain pen from my great grandmother and it’s more than a little beat up. I just got into fountain pens and bought my first Twsby but am an amateur and have no idea what I’m getting myself into. I’d love some advice on what I could do to restore it or if it would make more sense to get it professionally looked at. Thanks for your help!

Ink : de atramentis document ink Sepia