My top 5 in stationery for 2020

Well, 2020 has been a shocker, hasn't it? I'm glad to see the back of it and hoping that 2021 brings better things.

I want to end the year on a positive though, so I'm going to share with you my top 5 items of stationery from 2020. A couple are old favourites that will make the list any year; the rest are things that are new (or at least new to me) this year.

In no particular order...

My favourite pen:

This has been for years, and may be for many more to come, my Rosetta Mosaic, with a 1.1 mm stub nib (though it can be a tight choice between that and my Conklin Durograph, also a 1.1 mm nib).

Why do I love it so much? I have both hypermobile joints and arthritis (the two are linked...), and a fine/small pen can be uncomfortable for me to hold for long periods of time. When I'm writing, I can write screeds of notes, so a chunky monster of a pen is the order of the day. I also love the 1.1 mm stub nib that, while not managing to make my writing come even close to how splendid Scrib's is, makes it at least neat and legible! On decent paper, the line is also thick enough to get some fabulous shading.

My favourite pencil:

Yes, I'm a stationery nerd. I have a favourite pencil! For similar reasons to wanting to write with a chunky fountain pen, I need a pencil that writes well for little pressure and so my go-to pencil is either a Blackwing (though I'm not keen on the eraser) or, more recently a Tombow Mono, with Tombow just edging it this year.

My favourite medium- to large-sized book(s):

This is a tough category, and I can't be pinned down to only one! It depends on what I want to use it for. My favourite book in which to record my knitting projects is a very different beast to one I want to plot a book in. For those who followed my series on which was my favourite notebook, there will be no surprise that Poach My Lobster won, but these are now getting scarce on the ground. Nero's may still have a handful, if you're quick!

For a general all-rounder, I would have to go Clairefontaine, or Endless Recorder.

My favourite Traveler's Notebook:

This category is much easier! The Pebble TN book that I reviewed earlier this year. Why? Because it's just glorious! Tomoe River paper, lots of numbered pages, page markers... What's not to adore? I don't use a TN for bullet-journaling or for general planning; I tend to use them as notebooks relating to writing, but they are superbly designed for bullet journals or to use as a planner, especially if you pair them with the stamp kit, also by Pebble. 

My favourite pocket notebook:

Unlike Stu, I'm far less of a fan of pocket notebooks. I tend to have one on my desk as a general 'capture-all' though it can also double (loosely) as a day planner. It is invariably a pocket Clairefontaine (these are, at time of writing, sold out, but these are similar). Why? They have amazing paper (even brilliant for fountain pens - somewhat of a rarity on the pocket notebook arena), there are oodles of pages per book and they're cheap as chips!