First, I want to wish all my readers a Happy New Year. Thank you for reading La Plume Etoile and sharing your comments and experiences with me. I hope 2013 is a great year for you!
Now, onto today’s post topic: I’ve been thinking about making changes to my pen maintenance routine for a while now, but didn’t necessarily think it was a post topic. However, when I saw the Inkophile’s post about her 2013 pen resolutions, I decided to post my own as well. (I didn’t think she would mind that I used her post as inspiration.) Besides, announcing one’s resolutions makes one more accountable to follow through with them, right?
1. Like the Inkophile, I resolve to be better about keeping my pens clean. I went through a MAJOR overhaul of my pens recently and took weeks flushing and draining and soaking and draining them. I followed that with more flushing and draining and soaking and draining. I had groups of pens in about 10 plastic cups stuffed with tissues at one time all strewn on my counter. Some cups even had more than one pen in them. It thought this process would last forever, but eventually most pens were clean enough to refill or store. Rather than go through that ordeal again, I will be more regular in cleaning them.
2. Resolution #2 is to only fill the pens I am currently using. I had a habit of keeping ALL pens in my rotation inked at all times. I did this because all pens and inks were ready to use at my whim. However, I found this to be less than ideal because ink dried inside the nib. I couldn’t see it, but the extended flushing procedure told me it was there. To avoid this in the future, I am going to only ink the pens I regularly use. I will ink other pens as the mood strikes me, but will have to use that pen until all the ink is used before I fill another. I will allow myself 2-3 “extra” inked pens outside of the few every day staples.
3. Lately, I have been defaulting to some of the cheap plastic fountain pens on a regular basis. So I will continue to make an effort to use the pretty pens more often.
What are your 2013 Pen/Ink/Paper Resolutions?
Thanks for the mention. All those cups with your fountain pens enjoying a spa holiday is charming. 🙂
Margana
I am always tempted to have too many pens filled with ink. What if I suddenly want/need to use one? 😀
I am working on being disciplined. There are a few pens that will always/mostly be inked, and the others can be inked when I feel like it. However, those additional pens must have a limit on how many extras I can ink, and if I ink them, I have to finish using the ink in them before I can ink more.
I’ve had 15+ pens inked at one time and it will happen again. Once I reach an impossible number, then I stop and wait til it comes down to a reasonable number. Right now I’m at 6 but I want to be at 2-3 and then I will start again. I want to see many colors. A pen for signature with black and blue black. Inks of red/green/blue. I will load several pens with one color theme, want to see how they may look in different pens. Its usually not a full fill of a converter. Usually I’m cleaning 2-4 pens at a time.
My New Year’s resolution is to learn about different inks/their colors/differences in nibs and on paper.