fountain pen

by Tony Thomas I participated in the Rhodia Paper Project (Week 2) at www.rhodiadrive.com . First of all, what a delightful assortment of papers from Clairefontaine! I inked up some of my favorite fountain pens and also pulled out a pencil for this test.  Pens/pencil used were: Pilot Metropolitan Fine w/Noodler's Black, TWSBI Vac 700 (.8 Nemosine Stub nib) w/Waterman Serenity Blue, Lamy Studio EF w/diluted PR Chocolat, Lamy Vista (1.1 stub) w/Noodler's Black and a Pentel Kerry Mechanical Pencil with .7 HB lead. Here are the tests: G. Lalo Verge de France (100g): This is a great slightly off-white laid-finish paper that would be great for formal correspondence.  As a result, it has a bit of texture that is only slightly uncomfortable when writing with an EF or fine nib. It accepts ink beautifully and drying time was acceptable.  No feathering observed.  The paper also performed well when I used my pencil, producing a solid, dark line.   A really great paper. Clairefontaine GraF

By Tony Thomas I wanted to breathe some new life into my custom Hidebound Leather planner cover, so I decided to distress it.  Distress it?  Yep! What does distressing entail?  Basically, you remove all of the contents of the cover and then wring it like a paper towel.   And then you do it again and again in various directions.  If you have the right kind of leather, it will change its color and show an incredible texture change! The top picture is of the cover shortly after I received it.  The picture below it was taken after distressing the leather.  Dramatic, indeed! I decided to also distress the cover I bought for my Clairefontaine notebooks.  It is on the left (below) and my planner is on the right.