Thanks Secret Fun Santa!

And thanks to the elves for finding another tinkerer to pair me with! New section pliers, scratch paper, chocolate, ink samples and blends, a desk-top pen holder, and a Jinhao 9019. I didn't realize how worn my old section pliers were until I opened these up—needed them more than I knew! The ink samples include Diamine Monboddo's Hat, which I think might be the first purple ink I really like, and real oddities like evaporation-concentrated Mrs. Stewart's Bluing which is SHARP looking on the page and which I look forward to playing with. The desk-top pen holder has clear silicone caulk (?) around the rim and in a spiral on the inside to hold a pen without slipping or scratching. I'd seen Jinhao 9019s on Amazon but never in person, and somehow I got the impression that they were stubby little fellas, but it turns out they're heckin chonkers! And the Jinhao 9019 has a custom stub grind! I smoothed it a bit more on 12000 micromesh to adjust it to my hand and it's writing nicely and with noticeable line variation.

Really really fun stuff, secret fun Santa! Thanks so much for putting this stuff together for me!