Enjoy Collection 2025: Q2
Finally warm enough to take my TN to the shore of Lake Superior.
It’s that time again (and it feels like just yesterday I reviewed Q1!) to take a look at my collection usage over the past three months. If you’d like to check out my Q1 musings, you can click here. I’ll start with the state of my goals that I set at the beginning of the year:
Continue reaching for inks I have never tried or haven’t used recently.
Inventory my paper and notebooks.
Share my experiences as I explore the different parts of my collection/hobby.
I feel like #1 and #3 are going well, although I would like to get back to a more consistent schedule with sharing info about different activities and collection items. However, the second goal needs some rethinking - more on that in a bit.
Goal #1: Reaching for dusty/never used inks.
I used 40 different inks in 2025 Q2. That’s only -7 from 2024 Q2 (47 inks) and -2 from 2025 Q1 (42 inks). Out of curiosity I compared ink color spread between the two years and I am certainly drawn to similar colors, however this year I have been really into orange ink in Q2. I used five oranges, compared to just one in 2025 Q1 and 2024 Q2. I also used significantly more black/gray inks than Q2 last year, which was nine this year and five last year. This is really reflected in inks that were re-inked multiple times which were: Colorverse Pioneer Container (2 fills), Ferris Wheel Press (FWP) Bearrington Black (3 fills), FWP Lantern Crossing (2 fills), FWP Pumpkin Patch (3 fills), and Teranishi Antique Black (2 fills). There were only four inks, however, that were used during the same period in both 2024 and 2025. These inks are Anderillium Luna Moth Green, Diamine Candlelight, Monarca Mar Caribe, and Wearingeul Othello.
The 40 inks were as follows (key: ^unused and/or dusty ink, +purchased/received in Q1 or Q2 2025, *sample):
Red (3): Diamine Grotto^, Colorverse Red Horizon^, Anderillium Piranha Red^+
Pink (1): FWP Billowing Blush
Orange (5): Anderillium Flapjack Octopus^+, FWP Pumpkin Patch, FWP Lantern Crossing^+, FWP Russet Typecase, FWP Hearty Harvest
Yellow (1): Diamine Candlelight
Green (4): Anderillium Luna Moth Green, Colorverse Gluon, FWP Lost in the Leaves^+, FWP Knitted Nettle
Blue (11): Amarillo Blue Suntan^+, Colorverse Neptune’s Occultation^, Colorverse Windy City Blue^+, Colorverse Strelka, Diamine Vibe, FWP Bluebell Brushstrokes, FWP Ribbiting Pond, FWP Tides of Midas^+, Monarca Mar Caribe, Papier Plume Lake Michigan Sunrise^+, Teranishi Nightime Soda Blue^+*
Purple (6): Colorverse Conjecture^, Colorverse Pioneer Container, Diamine Lullaby^, FWP Whispers of Twilight^+, FWP Madame Mulberry, FWP Gossiping Grapevine^+
Brown (2): Anderillium Anglerfish Deep^+, FWP Oyster Hour
Black/Gray (7): Diamine Tundra^, FWP Wayfinder’s Slate^+, FWP Highland Smoke^+, FWP Granite Guardians, FWP Bearrington Black, Teranishi Antique Black ^+*, Wearingeul Othello
Interestingly I used fewer inks per month this quarter with April having 17 inks used, May was 15, and June was 9. I don’t even think I was necessarily writing less, but re-inking pens with the same ink more often. There were 21 inks that were new to me or I had not used since 2021. I feel like I’ve been exploring a lot more after I started using converters more often in my Kawecos. Due to the smaller capacity I can get a pretty good testing period in, but I can swap it out within a few days if I’m not enjoying that color. I have to give myself credit for being very self-controlled at the Chicago Pen Show and only picking up four new inks. All other ink additions have been purchasing samples (the Teranishi inks) and the two affiliate inks I receive from Ferris Wheel Press each month.
I’m really enjoying the addition of the swatchbook to the ink passport - it makes it easier to determine which ink I want to try and combat that recency bias when choosing a color.
The A6 notebook box… I am getting in the habit of checking here first before looking to buy another notebook.
Goal #2: Inventory my paper and notebooks.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to easily go about this, at least as far as organization goes. I have four locations in my house where I keep paper and notebooks. I thought about doing it by location, but since I move things around quite often, those lists would become useless really fast. There are also several notebooks that have the same paper but different sizes. Do I write down by instance or each individual? There were a lot of other questions like that which usually thwarted me before I got very far.
Beyond that, just going through my antique file box showed me that I have a LOT of variety. I’ve been really fascinated by paper properties and histories, so I decided I needed a new plan. I am revising this goal for the second half of 2025 to: Review paper and notebooks after you have finished a notebook/notepad OR if you have been using it for an extended period of time.
I feel like this will also help me be more successful with goal #3 going forward. I have a lot of different and unique papers, and I really want to share what I think of them. It was a lot of fun at the paper sampling table I made for the Chicago Pen Show Pen Social and many people knew what they wanted to look for on the show floor the next day. I have the opportunity to share more, so I plan to. Considering that some papers can be really hard to find or expensive to get your hands on, having some notes about what to expect is certainly useful. I’ve certainly been burned by paper that should have been great before, but then turned into a chaotic bleedthrough mess (I can handle ghosting but bleedthrough can be a deal breaker for me on a paper).
Goal #3: Share my experiences as I explore.
In this second half of the year I was still struggling to think of what to write. It’s so incredibly easy to get distracted these days so I’ve been really trying to focus on breaking free of the digital and communicating ways to do that even when the rest of the world is being insane. Due to the writing struggle I have produced far fewer posts in this quarter, which I hope to change. After all, I love talking about stationery so I need to do it! If there are any topics you’d like me to cover in future posts, please leave me a comment or send me a message! I may not be able to get to all of them, but it helps on the days where I’m stuck.
Overall, Q2 was rather chill hobby-wise. I didn’t buy a whole lot of stuff, I’ve been in thicker notebooks so I haven’t been burning through paper as fast as I’ve done in the past, and I’ve been choosing inks based on vibes/wanted colors more so than searching the dusty inks list or flipping through my ink passport book to find something I haven’t used in a while. I think that led to a lot of the increased usage in orange and black/gray. Black/gray is a very focused color for me and I use it when I really need to get into deep work. Orange is my ultimate fun color most of the time (was obsessed with Pilot Precise rollerballs in orange as a teen) and I needed some fun and lightness. I’m sure in the future I will look back at some of my more recent journal entries and say, “Dude, you were writing some really dark stuff in fun ink,” but sometimes that’s just how things go.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the year stationery-wise and some projects I am working on behind the scenes. I'm choosing the creative life for the first time (was too afraid to try when I was younger and I need a break from chasing museum jobs), and I think it’s finally starting to feel real after four months. I have lots of inky adventures coming up and I can’t wait to share.
This summer I will likely be found here quite often - especially on stormy/windy days when the tourists hide from the wildness of the lake. Those days are my favorite. One tricky part of writing when the wind is blowing off the lake into your face though is making sure you don’t pause long enough for your nib to dry out, haha!
Currently Inked
(completely forgot to take a pic before cleaning out my pens… so no pic this week!)
FWP Bearrington Black - Kaweco Ice Sport Red B - Still vibing with this color. This pen is currently living on my desk and is always a quick grab away when I need to jot something down.
Anderillium Flapjack Octopus Orange - Kaweco liliput fireblue M - Just starting to play with this one and it reminds me quite a bit of Robert Oster Fire on Fire, but with a little more shading and a hair brighter. It’s giving me the orange ink joy that I need right now.
Colorverse Pioneer Container - Kaweco liliput copper B - I wanted to play with a limited edition ink and I decided to grab this one from the New Horizons box set from a year or two ago. All of the colors in this set are great, but this one and Pluto and Beyond (a green) are probably my favorites out of the four. Pioneer Container is a gray-purple and has great shading.