For the past 10 years, rather than doing new year’s resolutions I’ve been doing “fiber goals.” The idea has always been to set goals around chasing joy, directing my creativity, and making space in my life for things I want to do. But I don’t think that’s going to be as much about fiber this year! So I’m changing the name to “Creative Goals” and opening it up to other types of creativity explicitly in 2026. Continue reading
Diamine Inkvent Day 9-12
Resuming the inkvent posts as swatch Wednesday posts. I took pictures of day 9-12 before I got totally swamped with moving stuff, but I’ll have to take the rest of the pictures in the new house. (I do have all my swatches, though!) Day 9: Bittersweet. Very bright green, no shimmer or sheen. I thought … Continue reading
Happy New Year! January 2026 Life and Ink
We made it! Plan “get the dog and us across the country with an RV and our friend who loves driving across the country” was a total success. Continue reading
Fiber Goals 2025 – How Did I Do?
This year’s goals were as follows: I realized that my original plan to run a stash-focused social media event wasn’t something I wanted to do any more, so I swapped that one to be the more vague but intensely more fun “write more.” Here’s the mid-year check-in: Revisit Old Goals August: Used up some leftover … Continue reading
2025 Diamine Inkvent Teal – Day 5-8
Second set of Inkvent inks! Yes, I’m behind. It’s been an absurd month as we prepare to move, with our entire plans getting derailed repeatedly, but most of this week’s news has been good so here’s hoping! Day 5: Marie Rose. Kind of an orange-brown that shows a bit of black at the edge of … Continue reading
2025 Diamine Inkvent Teal – Day 1-4
Every week this month I’ve had to completely re-evaluate all my plans and expectations. So I got a late start with Inkvent after a sudden emergency, but I’ve been swatching inks daily since I caught up and it has been a nice ritual amidst the chaos. Turns out the chaos of a house in the … Continue reading
December 2025 Ink and life
I knew that this month was very likely to go off the rails with our upcoming move, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have hopes even as I tried to build slack into my plans. One of the things I’d hoped was that I’d be able to take a little time out of my day and do Inkvent swatches and journalling as a bit of a meditative practice in the face of chaos. Turns out chaos was stronger than that and I’ve been mostly offline for the first few days of the month, but I’m catching up and getting into it now. Continue reading
November 2025 Ink and fiber thoughts
Going with a spooky kitty theme this month, since I had a pair of good spooky kitty sticker sheets from last year’s stickii Halloween countdown. Also, some thoughts on advent-y stuff for December as I plan out the last of my year. Continue reading
October 2025 Ink Palette & Stickers
Happy Spooky Month! I’ve got a lot of Halloween-themed stickers leftover from last year’s Stickii countdown, and I’m slowly trying to make a dent in my ink samples this month. Journal Stuff My Clairefontaine Triomphe journal is a few pages from done so it’s getting retired this month. (In theory I’ll use the last pages … Continue reading
Ranking my fountain pen collection
I’ve been thinking a bunch about my fountain pen collection lately. I’m up to around 25 pens (I should probably count or something) most of which are relatively cheap ones that I got with the idea of trying a specific thing: a different nib, brand, filling mechanism, body material, size, etc. At this point I … Continue reading
Getting epubs to show emojis on kobo clara bw
For some reason, eink screens work significantly better for me when I have even the mildest of headaches, so my ereader has been an important accessibility device for me since it now means I can read something while I’m waiting for my painkillers to kick in. I currently use a Kobo Clara BW and aside … Continue reading
September 2025 Ink & Pen palette
Yup, I bought the Pelikan Pura to replace my Pelikan Twist and I have zero regrets. Continue reading
Campus vs Traveler’s blank monthly calendars (size comparison)
It’s time to bid farewell to last year’s calendar, and set up a fresh one! I’m moving from the Traveler’s Notebook free monthly calendar to the KOKUYO Campus one, mostly because the latter is a bit bigger. (Spoiler: the squares are about 18% bigger.) Continue reading
Pelikan Twist: my new favourite fountain pen for shimmer ink
I tried a Pelikan Twist for shimmer ink and it was noticeably better than any other pen I own. Continue reading
Forgot a new thing!
In my previous post about fiber goals I’d claimed not to have done anything new in July, but I forgot I made a book nook! It’s not apparent from the photo but it’s sized to fit on a bookshelf. This was a kit I bought online a year or two ago. I did decided some … Continue reading
Fiber Goals 2025 mid-year check-in
This year’s goals were as follows: We’re a bit more than halfway through the year so let’s see where we’re at! Revisit Old Goals Started strong in January by finishing up a rainbow shawl that had been on the needles for quite some time: I’d intended to release the pattern since I had an old … Continue reading
August 2025 Ink Palette and stuff
We’ve reached August! House hunting is going ok but we’re back in the US while we push offers through our real estate agents. It was a good trip but I’m very happy to have air conditioning again: I had a few days without headache for the first time in two weeks once I got home. … Continue reading
Fountain Pens for Summer Travel
I’m on a trip! I don’t travel as much as I used to, so I think this is the first time I’ve brought a vacuum filling pen on a plane. I picked up a Nahvalur Original Plus last year when I was collecting a bunch of different fountain pens mostly to see what would stick. … Continue reading
July 2025 Ink & Pens (+tiny Endless Phantom Review)
I decided to be a bit lazy with July’s stationary choices, so we’re continuing 2 pens from last month and just adding in the pen that I had been using for todo lists, and repeating the bunny sticker sheet that I hadn’t finished. I did get some new puppy stickers for my calendar (I’m currently … Continue reading
Books returned June 8, 2025
Catching up on some missed weeks now! My books Full Speed to a Crash Landing – I read the second one first so I had some idea of how this ended but wow it was fun to see how they got there. Kind of… space heist crossed with enemies to lovers vibes, but no resolution … Continue reading
Books & Games returned June 15, 2025
Library materials returned June 15, 2025. Lots of games & graphic novels this week! Board Games Gravity Maze – a puzzle game where you drop a marble from a start point to an end point. Cards of different difficulties give you different setups. My kid really enjoyed the easy levels then got bored, which is … Continue reading
Moving on
For anyone who hasn’t already heard: I got hit in the latest round of layoffs at work. I’m super excited about this since it gives me the ability to take the rest of the summer off to spend with my kid, something I’ve wanted to do for a while. Continue reading
June 2025 Ink Palette and Journal stuff
Trying two new inks this month, and a new book cover for my journal! Also, if you’ve got tips for using shimmer inks better, one of my pens is already acting a bit clogged and we’re not even two weeks into the month, so I’d be happy to hear any advice! Continue reading
Books & board games for May 25, 2025
Trying something new: I haven’t been reviewing books because it takes a long time to write reviews on my phone, and I’d been working on reducing my phone screen time. But I’ve been using my computer more to write fanfic so I’m going to see if weekly book posts are more likely to happen now … Continue reading
May 2025 Ink palette & journal supplies
Honestly, I was planning to phone this one in and just use some pens that had ink in them already because I was feeling so burned out partway through a week of solo parenting, but then I pulled out the stickers and the dopamine hit was good enough that I had a nice time putting … Continue reading
How I reduced my phone screen time
I had this idea to do some socks tracking how much time I was spending staring at my phone. A lot of knitters track things like temperatures, but that’s never really interested me, so I set about thinking about data that I’d like to track and could do with relatively minimal effort. (Some people may … Continue reading
April 2025 ink palette & journal supplies
Let’s try getting this posted before the end of the month this time! Here’s what I’m using for journal/calendar stuff this month, with some mini reviews of the supplies I’ve used already. Notebook As I mentioned last month, I’m starting a new notebook for April even though my iroful one isn’t quite full, because I … Continue reading
March 2025 ink palette & journal supplies
I took these pictures back at the beginning of March and never posted them, so you get them on the last day instead! Stickers March’s Fountain Pen/Ink Combos: Since this is the end of the month, I’ll say that all of these worked out pretty well, but I did have a bunch of hard starts … Continue reading
February Ink Palette + Pens + Stickers
People actually responded to my January ink palette so I’m encouraged enough to post one for February! I’m starting with just 4 inks this month. My current plan is to also rotate in some of the other pens I have inked if I want a few more colours (I have a few on my desk … Continue reading
January Ink Palette / Spinning
Happy new year! I haven’t decided if I’m going to record my ink selections on the blog all year, since they’re already recorded in my journal itself, but I like seeing other people’s choices so here’s January’s inks! Continue reading
Fiber Goals 2025
This is my 10th year setting “fiber goals” as a fun way to direct my crafting for the year. I’ve come to feel like setting goals around creativity and joy and focusing on accomplishing things I want to do is important. Especially in contrast to a lot of traditional new year’s goals that are kind … Continue reading