The Saguenay leather notebook cover

I’ve decided to start making leather items to accompany my pens.

The Saguenay is a notebook holder with sleeves for four pens, as well as an additional pocket for extra items such as a phone or small notepad. This version was custom made for a B5 -sized Stálogy Editor’s Series 365Days Notebook, which I use daily. The centre pocket holds my phone and a small Maruman Mnemosyn 161 Memo notepad.

As you can see, unlike most notebook covers, the book itself is on the left side. This means that, when you open the book, it’s not resting on the inside of the cover, and therefore (probably) on your pens…

In case you’re curious, the pens are (from top to bottom) a Wall-Eversharp Doric with adjustable nib (my daily-use pen these days…), a Miller 696 with a very nice flexible nib, a Lamy Linea (I think…) fitted with a 1.1 mm stub nib. and a Uni Kuru Toga Roulette Model 0.5 mm mechanical pencil.

If you’re like me, and you like the idea of a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil, but spend all of your time breaking leads, then the Kuru Toga may change your life. There are two things that set it apart from a normal pencil. The first is that it rotates the lead as you write. This keeps the lead wearing evenly, rather than starting with a corner edge, and slowly becoming a chisel point as you write. The second is that, in order for that rotation mechanism to work, Uni had to develop a new kind of lead that is hard on the exterior and soft in the interior (rather than the other way around). This is certainly not an expensive pencil – and definitely worth trying.