hmm

[mandie_rw]

So I sort of forgot that mom and I had plans for tomorrow-day, and then I have work, and obviously I'll be busy most all of Saturday...so I have essentially one day (with work) to finish the new 50s dress for the opera on Sunday! Hmmmm. I did sew the basic bodice together today, but this seems unlikely. You never know, maybe it'll go together very quickly! Ha. Ha. Ha.

Why did I suddenly run out of sewing time? Welllllll, I've been wasting a lot of time the past two days learning all about fountain pens. Um. Is that weird? You see, I came across an article linked on FB about how it isn't really computers that killed handwriting...it was the rise in ballpoint pen use. Oh. Well, that makes sense, actually! Those things are no fun to write with. You might've noticed that I enjoy pretty, oldey-timey things (WHAT?! NO WAY), so the enormous amount of pen and ink options available make me quite gleeful! (Zillions of colors! Shimmery inks! Eeeeeee!) So I'm treating myself to a pack of disposable fountain pens from a delightfully helpful website I found (I say "treating", but it's $7.50 for three pens, so not a huge expense), to see if I like them.

...I may have found an even dorkier hobby than historical costuming. xD

Comments

[chocolatepot]

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

Let me know if you have any questions. :3

[mandie_rw]

*giggle* I *thought* I remembered you were One of Those People! ;) I'm quite excited to join the Dark Side...though I'm proud of myself for being practical and not buying All The Things right away. (It was very tempting!) Funny because it's not like I have nice handwriting or anything...

I'd love a brief overview of what inks and pens you like! I watched way too many YouTube videos (oh god I am watching videos about fountain pens what is my life) so I have some idea of what I'll buy next, but there is no such thing as too much information! :D

[chocolatepot]

Trust me, your handwriting will get sooo much better (at least when writing with the fountain pen - my ballpoint handwriting is still crappy). My journal looks so elegant these days.

I'm definitely not an expert as I haven't tried out many pens/brands, but so far my favorite modern pen is my TWSBI Vac Mini, which has a medium nib and is very, very smooth. I like being able to see the ink to know how much is in there and what it is. On the other hand, the vintage pen I generally use is just a little Esterbrook J that I rehabbed (put a new ink sac in), which is much lighter - the vac's made of a thicker acrylic and has the plunger mechanism to make the vacuum, while the Estie is really just a bit of thin plastic - and uses an extra-fine nib that was apparently originally designed for stenography.

Ink-wise, some people are really into black and blue, but because that's so omnipresent with ballpoints I prefer to play around and use different ones. (I do keep my fine-point Pilot Metro with blue/black cartridges at work for when I need to write stuff in normal colors. On the whole I prefer using converters/sacs because sucking the ink up is a fun little ritual, but cartridges are very handy for work since they're quick and clean to change.) I like basically all the ink colors I've tried and don't really notice a difference between brands - except for sparkly inks. Don't bother with Diamine's sparkly inks: there's not enough sparkle or it's too heavy and precipitates out very quickly, either way you end up getting no sparkle after the first couple of words and may end up filling the pen without any sparkles at all. J. Herbin's sparkly inks like Emerald of Chivor, however, seem to be very effective.

[mandie_rw]

Awesome; thanks! Especially about the Diamine sparklies, as I've been eyeballing them and wondering. Saved me a disappointment! I'm leaning toward the Pilot Metro for my first real pen, after I get used to the disposables, since it seems like no one has anything bad to say about them and they're very affordable. And then: BUY ALL THE FUN INK! 3:)

[chocolatepot]

The Blue Flame does have a certain red kind of sheen to it (and when you clean it and leave it to dry point-down on a piece of toilet paper/paper towel, it gives a cool blue and red chromatography thing) but yeah, SO hard to get any sparkle from it. :( Some J. Herbins are on my birthday list.

The Metro is a good, solid pen, but I found that I got bored with it very fast - unless you're really in love with the weight (they're metal) or you adore how it looks compared to other pens, there's nothing very special about them. Kind of plain, not an interesting filling mechanism, no flex. (The cap falls off a lot when it's posted and you put it down or angle it wrong.) I feel like, since you're getting used to handling pens with the disposables, you might as well hold off on getting a starter non-disposable until you want to get one a bit more interesting. Demonstrators are fun, piston-fillers are fun, some people really like how Lamy pens look.

If you're at all interested in vintage pens, I would love to give you an Estie J. They come in allll colors and the nibs are easily swapped out to get the size you want.

[mandie_rw]

That would be awesome!! I'd love to get more familiar with vintage pens -although I'm still learning the modern ones ha ha ha. xP

Do you have any opinions on the TWSBI ECO? I've heard it recommended on a couple lists of good basic pens, and it's around the $30 mark, which is probably the limit I'm going to spend on a pen right now.

(I got the pack of Pilot Varsity pens on Friday, and spent the first day going HOW AM I TOO STUPID TO USE A PEN WITH A NIB?? but I've mostly gotten the hang of it now! Didn't help that I started with the only one out of the pack that's a bit finicky!)