We got in a big shipment of Stalogy, restocking the classics, and along with it their new items, which makes it feel like we are swimming in excellent notebooks. Stalogy notebooks are really some of my favourite notebooks. Even before they released these new options (dot, plain, ½ year), I was pretty satisfied with having a high quality B6 and B5 option, with great paper and a very solid binding. The paper is thinner, which I prefer, while still handling ink well.

 

Now there are a few new options to the standard line up, including ½ year in the grid. The ½ year option means a slimmer notebook, particularly nice for those pocket A6s or B6s, but also nice just in general, when you don’t want to commit such a large notebook at a time. In some of the photos below you can see the comparison in thickness of the spines.

 

 

The ruling is fairly unobtrusive, which was the case for the graph and even more so for the dot.

 

 

 

 

 

Most of you are familiar to some extent with Stalogy paper, or Japanese notebook paper in general, and it’s good with fountain pens, as most are. Here is a writing sample of Sailor Kobe #68, which is such a beautiful ink, with so much shading and character. It’s about as light an ink as I use on a regular basis, because I can’t resist the pooling, which of course looks fantastic on this paper.

 

 

***

 

Here in Toronto, the weather has taken a turn for the cold and I’m bracing myself for the winter ahead. There’s a vaguely famous, possibly Canadian (possibly not, it also sounds like something the Scandinavians would say) saying about how there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing and I feel like that’s not totally true: you could have both if you really wanted. I mean, there are ice storms that bring down power lines and hail that literally cuts your face and blizzards and while I guess you could go out in an astronaut suit, it’s still unpleasant weather. The point does stand, though, that waiting to pick up kids after school could be less dreadful in a good winter coat, hopefully one with good pockets. I found one of my mitts in the side of the car door and it’s like I’m one of the children, parts of my winter gear in various places in the world. I’m still working up to it emotionally, mostly by breathing in the crisp fall air for what it is, while I have it.

 

Lots of good things ahead: Hobonichi pre-orders are up, and the boxes are floating over oceans now, Blackwing Bruce Lee pencils are also coming soon. We just launched these cat notecards, which is extremely micro even in the already pretty micro stationery world, but it took a lot of back and forths, indecision around the pictures to choose, the quotations, ordering the envelopes, tiny changes for the printer, to finally get them in. But there is something satisfying in projects finally coming to fruition, sorting and sliding the cards into their glassine envelopes. One project down, and onto one of the next ones, in their various pots on various burners.

 

 

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October 29, 2021 — Liz Chan

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