terriko

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.

I’ve been getting back into fountain pens for the first time since I was a teenager, and it’s a lot more fun this time. I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s musings, so I’m going to try to record some personal notes on the pens I have in my collection thus far.

Image Description: Pilot Varsity fountain pen sitting on a pile of purple/pink/brown wool fibre for spinning.

I picked up the Pilot Varsity with a Medium nib at the same time as I got ink for my mystery wood pen, with the idea that for a few dollars I’d have a pen that would definitely work in case the wood pen was a bust. Although this is intended as a disposable pen, people online seemed to agree that it was possible to convert it to a eyedropper pen and refill it, so I that’s my plan. I’m definitely the sort of person who tinkers with things and saving a $3.50 pen from becoming landfill fodder while learning more about pen construction seemed like a nice future project.

Off the bat, it was clear that I was right to pick up the extra pen: my wood pen tended to skip a fair bit and I had questions about whether it was me or the pen. And thankfully the Varsity was right there and ready to go! It wrote super easily and smoothly and gave me a baseline for comparison. With some experimentation using both I could eventually get the wood pen to behave a bit better. But it was clear that the Varsity was easier on my hands and less hassle.

My spinning journal with a bobbin of purple yarn singles and a Pilot Varsity fountain pen (also purple) sitting on top of it. The text is mostly boring notes about the yarn weights and how much I spun, but there is a funny note that reads "Hatch may have eaten some of the winterberry" after my dog got hold of something that might have been a stray hank of fibre. — Image Description: My spinning journal with a bobbin of purple yarn singles and a Pilot Varsity fountain pen (also purple) sitting on top of it. The text is mostly boring notes about the yarn weights and how much I spun, but there is a funny note that reads “Hatch may have eaten some of the winterberry” after my dog got hold of something that might have been a stray hank of fibre.

I used the Varsity for my spinning journal during Tour de Fleece. Now, I should be clear: I’ve never been good about tracking my yarn spinning projects, and I’m not actually even sure I care about doing better except maybe remembering to put a tag on the yarns when they’re done. But I’d seen some interesting advice about spinning journals that I wanted to try, and using a fountain pen was mostly a carrot to keep me excited about the writing part. And the pen definitely helped! (I’m still iterating on how I do the spinning journal, though.)

I love the little pen, and it was noticeably smoother and less work for my hands than my previous go-to spinning journal writing implement which was a pencil. It did add at a small risk that I could wind up bleeding ink on my fibre if I dropped the pen or something. It didn’t happen, but I *did* have purple fibre and a purple pen so I wasn’t too worried. Before Tour de Fleece, I’d mostly used the Varsity in my bullet journal which has very thick 160 gsm bamboo paper, so it was interesting to see the “ghosting” on the cheaper A5 binder paper where you could see the writing on the other side.

A pilot varsity pen sitting on top of a few daily entries in my spinning journal. The text is uninteresting project notes, but you can see some "ghosting" of writing on the other side of the page. The pen and ink are purple. — Image Description: A pilot varsity pen sitting on top of a few daily entries in my spinning journal. The text is uninteresting project notes, but you can see some “ghosting” of writing on the other side of the page. The pen and ink are purple.

I’ve since seen this particular pen actually bleed through a little bit in some notebooks that handled my other pens ok. I wouldn’t say it’s happened enough to be a problem but this particular ink does seep in a bit more rather than floating on top of the paper. I’m not sure if that’s what people mean when they say an ink is “wet” in fountain pen reviews, and I don’t have too many inks for comparison (yet!), but that’s kind of what I imagined as a reader. It does mean I probably won’t go through with my plan of sticking this in my backpack for out-and-about use, but I’m not sad for an excuse to try some other pens to find a good one for carrying around. And please, do tell me about your favourite carry around town or travel pens! I’m figuring out my short list of what to buy and try and love personal recommendations.

I used the Varsity and my wood pen by themselves through May and June before I bought a few more pens in July. For now, this pen is living with my spinning journal but occasionally making guest star appearances in my bullet journal when I want a little bit of purple! The Varsity is a fun little pen and easy to love, and I’m looking forwards to eventually using up the ink and trying to convert it from disposable to something I can refill.