Tracking favorites with ink swatches
Ink swatch cards are also a vehicle for thoughtfully tracking which pens and nibs and inks I use.
Swatch cards are brilliant. Swatches emphasize the details in an ink. The cards ease comparing different inks, particularly when two inks have similar hues. A swatch library emphasizes which color families my collection favors, which helps me make informed ink-buying decisions. I sincerely have a lifetime’s supply of somber blues and the tall stack of cards drives that reality home.
Importantly, ink swatches are fun to make.
Tracking pen-nib-ink combinations
More to the point, swatch cards are also a vehicle for thoughtfully tracking which pens and nibs and inks I use.
I added hash marks to my ink swatch cards in 2025 to track which pen-nib-ink combinations I enjoyed enough to keep inked over consecutive weeks. Inversely, updating tracking marks on swatch cards would also uplift pairings that only lasted a single week in rotation.
The goal was to keep the tracking system simple. A horizontal hashmark down the right-hand side of the swatch card signifying each week that pen-nib-ink pairing knocked around in my currently inked. An easily revised and reviewed tracker.
2025’s longest-serving pen-nib-ink combinations
Novelty and change drive my inking decisions. I often partially fill pens to hasten the need to swap out even enjoyable pairings. As such, pen-nib-ink pairings typically live two-to-four weeks in active rotation.
Eight consecutive weeks inked
Four pairings enjoyed eight consecutive weeks in rotation. In other words: only four inks paired so well with their assigned nibs that I kept them in active rotation for two months.
All four pens sport huge ink capacities. Two vacuum fillers (TWSBI Vac700R and Asvine v200) lean towards full fills due to the physics of their respective mechanisms. The other two are piston fillers (Pelikan m805 and Pilot 92). Partial filling vacuum-fed and piston-filler pens would require separating the body and then syringe-filling only part of the ink chamber.
Two blue-black inks, one bright blue, and one burnt orange-brown. Four ground nibs: three italics and one architect. A clean split between accent colors and darker, work-friendly tones.
Six consecutive weeks inked
Five more combinations spent six weeks on my desk in active rotation. A pair of blues (one blue-black and one mid-toned blue), a pair of teals (one dark and one whispy), and an earthy green-brown.
Four ground nibs and one B. Four dark, professional shades (Koninginne Nach-Blauw, 340, Enchanted Ocean, and Walt Whitman) and one bright accent in KOBE’s Fairies. Interestingly, the Pelikan m805 made a repeat appearance.
The ink swatch cards whisper to me that …
Dark blue inks stick with me. Denim and teal, in particular. Wide, ground nibs anchor themselves in my currently inked rotations — two-thirds, to be numerically detailed about the pattern. Most tellingly, these swatches teach me that I don’t know why these combinations were inked for so long.
Some possible reasons:
The pen-nib-ink combination worked so well I kept reaching for it.
The pairing was forgettable and I simply left it unattended in my pen case.
I disliked the pairing a perfect amount: not enough to for it (and left its ink level secured) but enough that I wanted another go at the pair the following week.
My realization, having reflected on 2025’s longest-lasting ink swatches, is that I would benefit from a note recording my feelings about each card to know what lesson to draw from its rotational longevity.
A lesson and a next step. Good deal-e-oh.
I don’t keep swatch cards as such—-I have the small col-o-ring from Well-Appointed desk, but they turned out to be too small for my liking so I quit using them. However, I keep an ink log where I write a short paragraph about why I chose the ink for that pen. Whenever I clean out a pen before I’ve written it dry, I add a few lines about why: did I just want a change? was it not a good combo? I love the reflective aspect, and I feel like it makes the cleaning and re-inking process feel more ritualistic.