Dressco Stitchnote Apricot–End of Book Review

I had time to kill so I went in to Tokyu Hands in Shibuya. This act meant it was inevitable that I’d walk out with something.

What I found were pocket sized notebooks from Dressco, which is a product of Takeo Paper Products. What attracted me were the orange card stock covers and then I felt the paper and had to own one.

At 14.5 x 8.5 centimeters (5.7 x 3.35 inches) the Stitchnotes are about .5 centimeters (.2 inches) longer and .5 centimeters thinner than Field Notes notebooks.

The Stitchnote (left) next to a Field Notes Red Blooded.

The Stitchnote (right) next to a Field Notes Red Blooded.

The cover is textured orange card stock that looks  a lot like an orange peel and the front and back facing pages are brown paper that looks great but, to my mind, wastes a page that could be used for writing. Of course, if I owned some kind of pen designed for dark paper it wouldn’t be an issue, but I don’t. So there.

Each book is stitched along the spine (hence the name) with orange thread and has 64 pages. The paper is a thick stock Dressco describes as their THREE DIAMONDS paper (this is emphasized by a watermark on each page). The paper is thick which makes the book slightly thicker than a Field Notes. This also makes it easy to use without any kind of backing.

The stitching that makes it a Stitchnote.

The stitching that makes it a Stitchnote.

It handles fountain pens extremely well without having that “some day this too will dry” feel of Mnemosyne notebooks. Even my terminator pens (my Noodler’s Ahab with a steel flex nib couldn’t make it bleed. There is also very little show through.

My pen and ink tests. I push harder than necessary.

My pen and ink tests. I push harder than necessary.

The back side of the pen test page. I even have to try to make it show through.

The back side of the pen test page. I even have to try to make it show through.

The biggest complaint I have is that there is something about the paper that makes it a bit slick. Because of this, it is extremely unforgiving. At one angle my Edison Glenmont with 1.1 stub nib would work perfectly. Half way down the page, as the angle changes with my bad writing discipline, the pen stopped working well. Some pens didn’t work well at all. It reminded me of the trouble I had with Field Notes Workshop Companion edition.

Also, at $7 a book, they are a bit pricey.

That said, I’ll be tracking down more Stitchnote Apricot notebooks for future use. (Aka STABLE: Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 thought on “Dressco Stitchnote Apricot–End of Book Review

  1. Pingback: Dressco StitchNote Avocado: End of Book Review | Mere Blather

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