The Well-Appointed Desk

I couldn’t resist styling the new Esterbrook Estie Lilac Slim (MSRP $185US) with my most matchy-matchy handbag. Can you blame me?

Seriously though, I was very excited to hear about the new Estie Lilac and to find out that they had introduced a smaller, slimmer version was an added bonus.

But first, let’s cover all the standard details:

The Estie ships in the same red textile box that all the other pens have shipped in.

Nestled inside the cushioned ivory interior is the lovely pen. The Estie Slim comes with both a converter and cartridge.

The downside of the Slim model is that it will not work with the MV-Adaptor that allows for the use of the vintage Esterbrook nibs that can be used with the standard sized Estie pens.

The Lilac is a brilliant violet with a crushed resin look. I think the silver hardware looks great with the purple color. I think the color choices keep getting better with the Estie. The new Esterbrook Estie started with some very classic colors but they have been slowly exploring more adventurous colors with each release.

The Schmidt #5 nib is very similar in size to the original vintage Esterbrook nibs so I was really hoping that they had developed a new converter that would work with the Slim model. Oh well. It’s still a gorgeous pen.

The Estie Lilac Slim features a #5 Schmidt nib rather than the #6 Jowo nib that is on the standard sizes Estie.

I liked the medium nib on my Estie Honeycomb so much I got a medium on the Lilac Slim as well. Of course, since the Honeycomb is a Jowo and the Lilac Slim is a Schmidt nib, it’s not really fair to compare.

The Schmidt nib has a little bit of bounce and writes pretty well out of the box. While not a flexible nib, the Schmidt nib is a pleasing writing experience. I know there are some that firmly prefer Jowo over Schmidt but I have not had issues with one over the other.

When compared with the original Blueberry Estie in standard size, it’s easy to see both the color and size difference. The Lilac Slim weighs in at a scant 21gms capped and filled compared to the full sized Estie at 26gms. Uncapped, the Slim is just 12gms compared to 17gms for the full-sized Estie.

Capped, the Slim is about 5.5″ to the full-size Estie’s 6″. And uncapped, its just 4.8″ to the full-sized Estie’s 5.25″ length. There’s a difference in overal width too which can be a comfort issue too. I prefer a slightly more slender pen because my hands are so small. (I was just complaining yesterday that my most recent travel coffee mug was too big for me to hold with one hand comfortably without fear of dropping it. I have to carry it with two hands like a toddler. So embarrassing!)

I wanted to compare the Estie Slim to other pens as well like the TWSBI Eco, a Lamy AL-Star and a Kaweco Sport for size. Above are the pens all capped. Below are the same pens posted, except for the Lilac Slim which doesn’t post.

Unposted, the Lilac Slim is shorter than a Kaweco Sport when its posted.

Overall, I think the Estie Slim will be a great addition in the new Esterbrook pen line-up. It’s beautiful and introduces a wider size range to the brand. It’s unfortunate that it does not continue to support the vintage nibs but I’m not sure how important that is to the pen community as a whole. For many, continuing the Esterbrook brand in a respectful way is more important than continuing to tie it to the older nib technology.

Included with my shipment were these lovely shaped paper clips and bookmarks which is a lovely addition. The bottom clip is the original Esterbrook factory building, in case you’re curious. I’m not sure if these will be available for purchase or if they are a special promotion. Ask your favorite retailer!

Tools:

Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 6mm guide sheet
Pens: Esterbrook Estie Lilac Slim ($148 at Pen Chalet or Vanness Pens)
Ink: Sailor Studio 143 ($18 for 20ml bottle)

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Kenro Industries for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Planners & Organizers

Notebook Cover Review: Coal Creek Bainbridge A6 Leather Cover

Laura CameronNovember 26, 2019November 21, 2019Leave a comment

Review by Laura Cameron

When Ana returned from the DC Supershow she brought back tons of goodies for review. I was lucky enough to snag the Coal Creek Bainbridge A6 Leather Cover ($49-$55). Coal Creek offers a number of A6 size leather covers designed to accommodate your favorite notebook, be it Hobonichi, Moleskine, Rhodia, Leuchtturm and more! Mine is designed for Leuchtturm.

The Bainbridge A6 leather covers are sourced from top tier domestic (U.S.) tanneries and are advertised as “American Full Grain leather that ages to a beautiful patina.” I can’t speak to the patina, but the leather is lovely. Covers are available in a variety of colors (mine is Cherry) and are finished with stitching which is also available in a variety of colors (mine is Sand).

The covers are designed to house an A6 or pocket size notebook. When you open the cover, on the left there are two pockets. Once is designed to hold a few spare business cards, and the inside pocket can hold receipts, notes, or in some cases, a phone! An elastic pen loop is optional.

On the right, there is a pocket designed for the back cover of your notebook. I tried the case with a variety of notebooks from the Leuchtturm 1917 Pocket (3.5″ x 6″), Octaveo notebooks (3.5″ x 5.25″), to the Crane & Co. Starfish Small Notebook (4″ x 6″), to the North of Rosemont notebooks (4″ x 5.75″) that I just reviewed. While all notebooks fit nicely into the cover, only the Leuchtturm and the Octaveo worked well when a pen was inserted into the loop. Otherwise the cover closed awkwardly as the pen and notebook battled for space.

Overall, the Bainbridge is a lovely slim cover that fits into my purse easily. I’ve been experimenting with carrying it around with me. I love that it’s lightweight enough not to add a ton of weight to my bag (unlike my beloved Chic & Sparrow covers), but that it also protects my smaller notebooks. I’m looking forward to adding my own patina to it.

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature

Giveaway Winner: Diamine Inkvent Calender

AnaNovember 25, 2019November 24, 20191 Comment

Thanks to everyone who played along with our giveaway and told us what they would do with 25 Days of Diamine ink samples. And a drum roll please for our winner….

I have emailed our winner directly and await address confirmation for swift delivery. Teri, Jesi and I can open each window together!

In DIY

Journal Accessory Review: Himekuri Sticky Calendar

Laura CameronNovember 22, 2019November 16, 20192 Comments

Review by Tina Koyama

I’ve been keeping a journal since third grade, and my journal format has changed as my needs have. The past decade or so, I’ve simplified my journal to more of a log: On most days, I write only a few notes to document places I’ve sketched, friends I’ve seen, books I’ve read, movies and TV shows I’ve watched, restaurants I’ve dined in and any noteworthy weather. To make this log, I use an unruled A5-size notebook (for 2020, it will be a Leuchtturm 1917, but I also like Rhodia) and pre-date the first half of the book with a year’s worth of weekly spreads. Occasionally, I need more space to pursue thoughts or ideas, and I’ll use the remaining freeform pages in the second half of the book to write at length. I also use the freeform pages to glue in photos and other ephemera. I usually fill an A5 notebook nicely in a year. Shown below is a page spread from my current journal.

This DIY format continues to serve me well, but the DIY part – ruling the pages in a weekly page spread and filling in the 365 dates – can be tedious and time-consuming. I know I can easily buy planners with a weekly page spread, but usually commercial planners shortchange the weekend by making Saturday and Sunday share a space (a pet peeve). I’d also miss the space for freeform writing following the log. I had been wishing I had some dated stickers that would serve the double duty of dating the spaces while also being prominent enough that ruling the pages would be unnecessary.

My wish was fulfilled by the Himekuri Sticky Calendar ($24) that I spotted on Yoseka Stationery’s Instagram feed recently. The repositionable stickers come on a cardboard backing that can be folded into an easel for desktop display. I chose the colorful and adorable Cat theme. Other themes available from Yoseka are Gray/White, Stamps, and Stationery, which features iconic Japanese stationery brands like Tombow. (Oh, I went back and forth several times between Stationery and Cat!) Apparently other years have featured different themes.

My first thought was to stick the whole year of stickers onto my journal pages before the year began, one week per spread, as I’ve done with my DIY journals. But after preparing the first two weeks, it occurred to me that it would be much more fun to stick one day at a time as I wrote the notes for that day. It’s almost like an advent calendar that lasts all year! On days when I need a bit more space than usual, I could use that space and simply place the next day’s sticker slightly lower on the page. Since they are repositionable, I could also change my mind about their placement as needed.

I’m already looking forward to journaling in 2020!

Yoseka is the only US store where I’ve found Himekuri offered, but Sumthings of Mine in Malaysia carries it, too.

(Products in this review were purchased with my own funds.)

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: Diamine Handel

Jessica ColesNovember 21, 2019November 21, 2019Leave a comment

By Jessica Coles

This week I decided to take a break from my normal lines of Sailor Studio and Montblanc inks and instead show an ink that is beautiful, inexpensive, but hard to find.

Diamine makes an astoundingly large variety of inks for a wide variety of clients. Some people even joke that Dimaine makes all inks (it isn’t true!). Two of the more interesting presentations of Diamine ink are their Music set and their Flower set. I have admired many of the colors in both sets for a while; the inks in each set are beautiful and well-matched to one another.

The existence of two sets actually became a problem for me, however. I could never decide which set I preferred. But then, I discovered that I didn’t need to purchase an entire set. I could order individual bottles from Cult Pens!

Although ordering from Cult Pens means ordering from overseas, the shipping rates are quite reasonable Music set along with Gerba, Pansy, and Marigold from the Flowers set.

Handel is a lovely pink-purple-brown ink. When it is first laid down, the ink looks rather muddy and pure brown. But as it starts to separate and dry, the purple and pink undertones start to show and then become the dominant colors. Handel is similar to Monteverde Blueberry Muffin but a dusty version of the reddish ink.

I used a glass dip pen for the writing above, so the shading is not as evident, but in the writing below, I used a fine nib that had no problem showing the shading qualities of Handel. It was rather mesmerizing to watch tthe ink turn from muddy brown to a dusty rose as I was writing.

Here’s a close-up of the shading in Handel (even bettter since the word IS Handel so the shading is actually IN Handel! Sorry).

In larger swatches, I found that the brown is more present that it is in writing. A very faint green-black sheen showed up at the edges of a large pool of the ink, but I never saw it in my writing.

I love that the colors are each very muted but easy to see in my writing – it is one ink that makes me want to keep writing longer just to get more of the color down on the page.

I hope you have enjoyed exploring an often overlooked ink with me! If you have any future suggestions, please let me know!

Tools:

Paper: Musubi Tomoe River Refill ($30-35 USD)
Ink: Diamine Handel (Cult Pens, approximately $4.50 for 30mL)
Swatch Cards: Col-o-ring ink testing cards ($10 for 100 card pack)

DISCLAIMER: All materials used in this review were purchased by me. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: Magic 8 Ball of Pen Predictions

AnaNovember 20, 2019November 20, 2019Leave a comment

As we edge closer to the end of the year, more holiday gift guides continue to emerge in the weekly links I see. Once again, I see a trend of reflection too, like Writing for Pain and Pleasure’s “How Many Versions of the Same Pen Does Anybody Need?” Others are starting to update their Top Lists of the last year, creating recommendation lists and making predictions for the coming year.

There are also more planner reviews and recommendations. Have you chosen your planner yet? Do you have predictions for the pen community for 2020? My Magic 8 Ball did not predict shadow inks craze of 2019, that’s for sure.

Guest Post Ink Review: MontBlanc Ladies Edition Pearl

AnaNovember 19, 2019November 18, 20193 Comments

Guest Review by Jaclyn Myers (AKA Inkpothesis)

Typically my opinion of an ink forms long after I have opened it. Assessing the important characteristics of an ink requires a pen to be filled, a nib to be dipped, and my Col-o-Ring collection to be expanded by yet another swab.

Other times, the presentation of an ink calls for some commentary. And in this case, two important topics must be addressed before we proceed.

Let’s start with the good news. Montblanc certainly knows what it’s doing when it comes to packaging. It’s not rare to find an ink bottle that catches my eye, but it is rare that I enjoy the process of actually unboxing an ink.

Montblanc special edition inks come in signature drawer-like boxes. They each feature the color of the ink on the inner box, and no detail is overlooked. Like all things Montblanc- it feels premium, and in this particular case, it’s done in a way I appreciate. If I’m judging this ink by outside appearances, consider me hooked.

But before I get too far ahead of myself, I have to go back to the moment I pulled this ink out of it’s shipping box. There’s just that one little thing- the little black text along the bottom of the box. The name of the ink.

I don’t know how many “good” names for pink exist in the world, and I do know that a lot of those names are already taken. Still, out of all the names- does anyone really need another “Ladies Edition” anything in the world? I won’t belabor the point here, as this lesson should have been learned many times over by now (Looking at you Bic for Women). But since something must be written with an ink to properly review it, I might as well make the quote applicable.

The thing that immediately stood out to me about this ink is the shading. In the quote above, I used everything from an extra fine TWSBI nib to a folded nib. With a pastel ink like this one, there’s a very fine line between great shading and sacrificing readability. Overall, I feel like this one strikes that balance well. Even in an extra fine nib, it’s acceptably readable. But in a broad nib and beyond, it really starts to shine. Sheen is all the rage- and I’m all aboard that band wagon- but shading is the dark horse of ink properties, and highly underrated overall.

There are a lot of pink inks in my collection that I REALLY like. Most of those fall under two categories: “eye-searing bright pink” or “dark pink with purple undertones.” So when making comparisons to this ink, I tried to grab a few pinks that I thought off the top of my head might lean towards a more dusty or light pink.

Confident in my choices, I gabbed my trusty Col-o-ring “Oversized” and swabbing accessories…

…I should have consulted with the ink experts Ana and Jesi.

I promise you that all five of the inks above are pink or at least pink-ish inks, but against the Ladies Edition the red tones of each of the other inks is exaggerated. In fact, when I went back to the rest of the inks in my collection- this pure, pastel pink was impressively distinct from all other pinks I currently own. It’s somewhere in the middle of the purple-pinks and red-pinks, and lighter and a little less saturated than most other shades.

Pastel Pink is not my favorite shade of pink. I tend to prefer more saturated inks. Overall however, in a crowded color range, I think Montblanc Ladies Edition Pearl sets itself apart as a pure light pink with excellent shading.

But…if you want a ladies opinion, you might have to look elsewhere.

Tools:

Paper: TBD with 6mm guide sheet
Pens: Folded Dip Nibs from Toronto Pen Company ($60C per 3-pack), Acrylic dip nib pen (Approx. $15), TWSBI ECO ($28.99)
Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) & Col-o-ring Oversize ($15)
Ink: Montblanc Ladies Edition Pearl ($43 for 50ml bottle)

Jaclyn is a research pharmacist and graduate student in Indianapolis. Follow her on Instagram, on her blog at Inkpothesis, or find her at pen shows behind the NibSmith table.

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