Pam Alison Knits

I decided 2024 should be the year I update my paper stash and I’ve already made a start on it. Two of my acquisitions were picked up in the lovely little Elm Hill Craft Shop situated on, and named for, Norwich’s medieval shopping street, Elm Hill. The shop itself is small but perfectly formed, consisting of a single room into which are packed stationery, toys, and what I can only call “bijouterie” – soaps and ribbons and French sweeties. It’s the kind of place where you can always pick up something that would make a great gift. They even stock a few Kaweco fountain pens.

My real reason for being in the shop was to stock up on greetings cards. I am convinced I spend my whole life buying cards, but as soon as a birthday or other celebration looms, I find I have nothing to hand. I am not sure how that can be, but I am determined to do better in 2024. I made a frustrating initial foray for cards during a break earlier in the month. The bigger shops I tried seemed to be in a post-Christmas slump with empty shelves presumably awaiting an onslaught of Valentine’s cards. Nothing guaranteed to make me run faster or further than a sea of lovey-dovey-ness! I am pleased to report that Elm Tree Crafts had a super selection to choose from.

So, to the paper. I had seen the pink notepaper pad from Original Crown Mill on a visit before Christmas and had been kicking myself for resisting it. Who wouldn’t want to write on ice-cream pink paper? I’m not disappointed, either – the paper handles fountain pen inks very well. I’m so happy to have the medium-nibbed Cross Beverly inked up because it’s such a good test for papers. As I’ve said before, this nib can put down enough ink to seem like the broader end of medium on some papers, yet edge towards the finer end on others. Here, it behaves impeccably.

The paper is labelled as 100g and the pad has 50 sheets. I bought the A5 version, but they also had A4 in stock. As well as being good for letter-writing, I’m interested to punch a sheet to check whether it is suitable to put into the William Hannah disc notebook. The thing with disc-bound systems is they tend to work best with slightly thicker papers (William Hannah’s own paper refills are 115gsm). They need a bit of structural integrity to withstand the action of removing and reinserting pages, and to move comfortably across the disks. In the back of my mind, I am preparing myself for the possibility of printing diary pages next year and I want to have a good feel for which binders might work and which papers are compatible.

The Silvine exercise book was more of a spur-of-the-moment purchase because, for a few short moments, I was on the search for all things yellow. On the occasions when I have to work from home, I’ve been finding my desk space very depressing, and I thought I could counteract this it with some bright accessories. Why not start with a yellow-covered exercise book?

Talking technicalities, this is a 9″ x 7″ book, with 8mm ruling and a printed margin, which is not something I generally look for in a notebook though it’s fine for work. The book is staple-bound with 80 pages and Silvine’s website quotes it as being “75gsm educational-grade paper”.

With this is mind, I dived in for an ink test and, once again, I am pleased with the result. The writing looks in line with what I’d expect from my selected nib widths, suggesting that the ink isn’t spreading too much before drying. There’s minimal show-through on the back of the page, all of which is impressive in a paper which, on the face of it, is pretty standard fare. I have to say that this paper, in particular, shows off the difference between Graf von Faber-Castell’s Cobalt Blue ink and Montblanc’s Midnight Blue – I sometimes wonder if these are too close in colour for it to make sense having both inked up at the same time.

All in all, I’m very pleased with these first two additions to my paper stash. They help me to feel less guilty about the things I’m deciding to rehome as I go through my “bottom drawer” of unused stationery. Sometimes you find you’ve moved on, your tastes have changed, and it’s time to let go of the things that don’t make you happy any more.