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As we head into July, stationery and pen fans tend take a moment to rest, enjoy the summer holidays and then re-evaluate their planner or other analog set-up. It’s just how we roll. This week, several posts feature reviews and reflections on goals and stationery plans that were set into motion in January. How have your stationery or planner approach changed since January?
Also, two more sites have taken time to play along with our #21penquestions tag. Some great answers!
(although some people — who shall remain nameless– don’t deserve it!)
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The post Link Love: Mid-Year Reflections appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Tomorrow I head out for St. Louis for the pen show. Will you be there too? If not, I hope you are having a wonderful summer and maybe I’ll see you somewhere else in the future?
Until then, have fun with this week’s links including Mike of Inkdependence’s entry into our #21PenQuestions project.
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Meet Me in St. Louis? appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
There are two guarantees at any pen show. One: good times will be had. Two: I will pick up Con Crud. Both can be said about the Atlanta Pen Show this year. There was time spent with friends old and new, a bit too much revelry and, on the way home, the distinctive misery of a sore throat and sniffles.
Jesi and I had a great time. We worked at our respective tables (Dromgoole’s for Jesi and Vanness for me), stayed up late drinking and swatching inks and hanging out with folks. Basically, your average pen show. The crowd in Atlanta was still smaller than it was pre-pandemic. Whether this is specifically because people are still hesitant to mingle or because there was not a big Pen Addict podcast event, I cannot say. Could be a little of both.
Friday was a decent crowd but slowed down around 3:30 or so. Saturday had a good steady stream all day despite some particularly rainy weather in the first half of the day. Sunday was pretty slow all day and gave vendors an opportunity to wander a bit, much to the dismay of our wallets.
I felt I had been doing pretty well not buying all the things– until Sunday. Friday, I purchased a lovely double-ended dip pen/pencil from Myk Daigle and a Kaweco AL-Sport from Vanness and had Matthew Chen modify the nib to a Kodachi grind (which I called the “Foccacia” all weekend because I kept forgetting the name. Ask for it by name!) Then Sunday rolled around and we had time to shop and I collected a small pile of inks and notebooks. And then, a vendor walked into our small ballroom and said “Pat forgot he packed this and thought you might like to see it.” The “it” in this scenario is a shop display of Lady Sheaffer Skripserts in tact. Yes, thirteen beautiful pens in a pink flocked display. It’s gorgeous and I couldn’t pass it up. With a little help from a friend, I was able to scrape together enough cash to purchase it and then very carefully carried it on the plane with me for the journey home like the treasure it is. I’ll do a more in-depth post about all the stuff I got at the show at a later date.
Friends also brought us lovely treats throughout the weekend from snack bags with granola bars and candy to homemade jams to beverages to help us get through the last hours of the show each day. People always say that you go to a pen show for the pens but you keep coming back because of the people you meet. It is 100% true. Over the years, the pen community has become like family to me. We share life’s ups and downs, the pen scores and losses and many a laugh. I am delighted to be a part of this diverse, colorful community.
Now, on to the Link Love!
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The post Link Love: Post Pen Show appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
It’s that time again! The Atlanta Pen Show starts tomorrow. Well, at least for vendors and folks traveling for the show. I will hopping on a plane tomorrow with pens, sample vials, Emergen-C and my faithfull suitcase, R2-D2. The Atlanta Show is a special show for me. It was my very first pen show back in 2015. It was the first show I attended post-pandemic. I’ve made new friends at the show and caught up with people I’ve know for years.
This year, I will be helping out at the Vanness Pen Shop table as usual and Jesi will be helping at Dromgoole’s table. Between the two of us we should be able to find the perfect ink, paper or pen for you. When we are not on the show floor, you can probably find us in the bar or next door at the Waffle House fueling up.
If you are planning to attend the show, please be sure to stop by and say hello to us. Visiting with friends is the best part of the show.
Be sure to live vicariously through us next week and we will be sure to post some photos of the show.
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Feelin’ Peachy appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
First, Laura and I have spent the week discussing where to put the information for the upcoming Toronto Stationery Show. Should we add it to the Pen Show Calendar? Should it get its own post? In the end we decided since it was pen-adjacent, I would add it to Link Love but then it didn’t seem to fit in any category except “Other Interesting Thing”. As I didn’t want and Torontonians to miss the post, I decided it would go UP HERE in the intro. The event is Sunday, April 30th so if you are in the Toronto area, you have time to make arrangements to attend, if this sounds interesting. Overall, I suspect the event will be more paper, stationery and journal focused based on the vendor list but who knows? If anyone attends, please drop me a line and let me know how the event was.
Now, for the Link of the Week topic: Gendered Pens. The Pelikan’s Perch put together a post related specifically to Pelikan’s tendency to gender pens. And by gendering pens, we are specifically talking about pens that have been “pinked and shrinked” and often tagged with “Lady”. With the exception of the Sheaffer “Pen for Men” this gendering of pens is almost always targeting women and thereby suggesting that all other pens are “not for us”. There are many people who might prefer a smaller pen or a pen in any color, be in black, pink, gold or rainbow, they do not have to specifically be women. While the shameless gendering of pens in the 50s and 60s now seems quaint, the fact that Pelikan is STILL DOING THIS in the 2020s is a bit — tone deaf.
Hopefully, having these discussions and addressing the (pink) elephant in the room will help to break down the stereotypes. People like all sorts of pens for all sorts of reasons, let’s not unnecessary labels on pens anymore.
(I realize by saying this I may have just made all the Lady Sheaffer Skripserts in the world exponentially more expensive as the collectors market has alwyas undervalued these pens because they are small and “girly”.)
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Can A Pen Be Gendered? appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Do you love reading posts at the Desk? Do you ever wish you could find a ton of other pen and stationery aficionados you can follow? Do you want to search for specific topics or reviews? Then we’ve got the answer: Pennaquod.
Pennaquod is maintained by Ian and is a way to search through compendium of posts from a ton of fabulous blogs. You can search Pennaquod for a specific topic (my search here was for “Platinum 3776”) and get a full list of blog posts on the topic to browse at your leisure.
Or you can simply browse the list of blogs Pennaquod searches and check out the ones that appeal to you to find new reviews.
All the blogs included are produce genuine blog reviews, and Ian’s site is a resource to the community, and not a for-profit venture.
Happy reading!
The post Pennaquod appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
I can’t believe its already the middle of March! Normally, this time of year, I’d be preparing to head to Little Rock for the Arkansas Pen Show but due to starting a new job, I don’t have the seniority to take as many vacation days as I have been able to take in the past. So, I sit in my studio, surrounded by cats and pack orders from here.
Many of these orders are for the sale pens listed in the shop right now. Laura and I culled our collections in a rash of spring cleaning. For me, doing a bit of collection culling leaves room to try new pens and to set some free to find better forever homes. With a collection as large as mine, many pens have sat un-inked for years while other pens get used on a daily or weekly basis. I also think that over time, I’ve found the size and style of pens that work best for me so the pens that don’t fit comfortably in my hands are ready to find their Cinderella hands.
Do you get bitten by the spring cleaning bug?
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The post Link Love: Moving Right Along appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
My friends and I love a good meme and we have been milking the same lame memes for years with varying success. This felt like an appropriate place to put this particular bit of silliness. What color ink are you wearing today?
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The post Link Love: On Wednesdays, We Wear Ink appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
It’s been awfully quiet at Desk HQ while Laura has been in New Zealand. She went on an adventure trip and should be back in the US sometime this week. Once the jet lag lifts, I can’t wait to here about her adventures. In the meantime, here’s a photo from her most wild adventure.
Would you jump out of a plane? Not me. No way! Laura is way braver than I am!
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The post Link Love: Jumping Out of a Plane! appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
While I didn’t pick up many new items while I was in LA at the California Pen Show, I did pick up a nasty head cold. Luckily, it was not COVID but it didn’t mean the pesky bug didn’t linger. I have been slowly coming back from the illness (are bugs getting stronger or am I getting weaker?) and managed to pass it along to Bob who is now fighting it off as well. I don’t thin the pen show can be entirely blamed for the cold. When I returned home, I discovered that several co-workers were out sick with various versions of the season funk too so clearly something is going around.
That said, my energy levels have been extraordinarily low and just handling day-to-day tasks has been a challenge. I am starting to feel better this week but yesterday was my full day back in the office and that was a huge physical undertaking after days in my jammies and only needing to get myself from the couch to the kitchen.
I did take time yesterday to back date a week of entries in my journal/planner and it all fit on one page. I think this is why I so appreciate the bullet journal/open log book method of time keeping. Some weeks, I need to pre-write the whole week on multiple pages to keep track of all the minutiae and then there are weeks, like last week, that I can summarize with “sick, in bed for days”.
How do you handle your planner or journal when things go off the rails?
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Pen Show Crud Lingers appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
I have so much news and stuff to talk about this week that I’ll try to be quick so you can get to those links — of course, you can just scroll right past my verbal diatribe if you want, I will never know.
The new California Pen Show was the overall success everyone was hoping for. The show was well-organized and well-attended for the first new show in our post-COVID world. Hopefully, as they plan for next year, there will be enhancements made like classes, workshops, and maybe even an evening auction. Honestly, that was probably the only elements, from an attendee standpoint that the show was missing. The show offered one day passes as well as a three day. Friday and Saturday were well-attended but Sunday was a little slow. This could have been due to the Superbowl (which occurred the same day) or the fears of the crowds normally present on Sundays at the former LA International Pen Show.
Jesi and I were the first faces people saw when they walked into the show behind two towers of inks. And we were hopping all weekend matching inks to pens and helping folks find just what inks they were looking for. In our rare slow moments, Jesi and I were able to wander about a bit and test out the new Schon Monoc Nib, visit with friends like Jonathan Brooks at Carolina Pen Company and John at Lemur. We also made new friends, visited with some folks we only see on the West Coast and oggle some beautiful pens.
Jesi left the show on Sunday afternoon in order to be at work first thing on Monday (in KC, coincidentally) and I left on Monday. When I got home, I discovered that I had picked up a raging case of con-crud. Not COVID, just your run-of-the-mill cold but it doesn’t make it any less of a drag. Our dear friend and Desk-contributor Tina, just posted that she did come down with COVID this week. Laura is about to leave on a two-week trip to New Zealand today as well. If we are short a post or two in the new couple weeks, its just a result of everything happening all at once so be patient with us.
Today, the entire city of Kansas City is downtown for the celebratory Superbowl champions parade. Except me. Because I am coughing up a lung. And I don’t really like crowds so I probably wouldn’t have been there anyway. My office, however, did give everyone the day off to celebrate. I will be “celebrating” by resting and recuperating from the crud.
There are some really great posts this week, including lots of ink reviews, a re-review of the Platinum Curidas, Gentleman Stationer’s review of the aforementioned Schon Monoc nib and lots more — a biotech firm is trying to bring back the Dodo (I’m having Jasper Fforde Thursday Next flashbacks) and even a cute dog rescue story and classic perfumes. Hope you find something that intrigues or delights you this week.
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Post-CA Pen Show appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
This week, a good friend brought me a box of Pumpkin Spice Moon Pies, one of our family’s favorite snacks and then I saw the Valentine’s Day special edition Moon Pies (with a beautiful box) on Dieline. Moon Pies on my mind, for sure! In preparation for Valentine’s Day, I hope you get to indulge in your favorite snack be it food or stationery.
Very timely, there are several posts this week about go-bags, EDC bags and travel kits. This has given me food for thought regarding what I want to pack to take with me to LA this weekend. What’s in your go bag?
Don’t forget! If you are in the LA-area, be sure to pop by the CA Pen Show this weekend and say hello to Jesi and I at the show.
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Moon Pie on my Mind appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Oh, Ian Schon! You crazy diamond! If you’re not familiar with the amazing products that Ian Schon has created, this is the week to do a bit of a deep dive. Not only is he continuing to up his game in fountain pens but now he’s also making his own custom nibs.
And the coolest thing ever is a typewriter that types in RUNES! Can you believe it? Check out the link in “Other Interesting Things”.
Pens:
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Schon on, You Crazy Nib appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Inspired by my post from last week, I added lots of celebratory days to my calendar. Today is A Room of One’s Own Day which is inspired with Virginia Woolf’s essay about being excluded from spaces considered “men’s domains”. Many women can relate to wanting to have a space for themselves, be it a room or just a comfy chair to read and just be left alone for a bit. Do you have a space for yourself? Can you carve out a little spot for your personal reflections, reading or working on your favorite hobby or craft?
This week’s inks are notably blue and since last week was Blue Monday, it seems pretty appropriate. And of course, here in the US, January can very much feel like a Black Hole.
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: A Room of One’s Own Day appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
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