A few weeks ago I won the European Paper’s Haiku contest . I received three moleskine journals, and have been enjoying them immensely. The Moleskine Wine Passions Journal is the last of my prize package to be reviewed.
It took me a while to decide how I was going to review this journal. Normally, when I get a notebook, sketchbook, journal—anything with paper—I start drawing. Even if it has lines or grids or bits embedded in the paper. But the Passions themed journals are different, and you’ll see what I mean as we go along.
I’ve wanted one of these—any of the Passion Book Series-because I’ve had an idea in mind, for quite some time. I do drink wine, but what I actually wanted to do was modify the journal for the purposes of my own passion—drawing patterns.
It would be lovely if Moleskine did a blank Passions book for the owner to fill in as they wish, or even better (are you listening, Moleskine?) a Zentangle® or Pattern themed journal. But since they don’t as yet, I thought I’d just change things a bit.
But it’s a lovely journal on it’s own, so I decided I should show you what it is before, and then give you an idea of the modifications I intend to make.
The Specs:
· Embossed cover
· Elastic band
· 3 ribbon place makers
· double expandable inner pocket
· Informative pages: wine glossary and measures and conversions.
· 6 themed sections to fill in
· 10 blank pages for notes and thoughts.
· Adhesive labels for customization
· Pages: 240 pages (120 leaves)
· Size: 5 by 8.25 inches (13 x 21 cm)
· 3 sheets of Sticker labels for customization
Look and Feel:
The cover is the standard black Moleskine cover except that it is embossed with wine glasses. Subtle, but cool. The elastic band is also standard, but there is three ribbon markers-one each in gray, charcoal and black.
The paper is ivory-colored and very thin, but I didn’t get any bleed-through, and there was surprisingly little shadow on the back, even when I used the Caran D’ache Grand Canyon brown and a Lamy Safari fountain pen. I did get smudging, so drying time is slow when using fountain pen. No smudging occurred with a Micron Pigma.
The informational pages include:
Two planning pages
Two-page Wine Glossary
Useful Measures and Conversions
Useful Measures and Conversions
An Index with titles and space for you to enter what is on each of the remaining 234 pages.
The journal is broken into tabbed sections. The sections are:
Sparkling Wines
White Wines
Rose Wines
Red Wines
Fortified – Sweet Wines
Spirits
Blank for Personal choice
Each section starts with a blank page. About 2/3 of that page is shaded.
For the rest of the section, each page has space for information, including:
Wine Name
Vintage
Grapes
% alcohol
Producer
Country-region
Ideal Pairing
Serving Temperature
Suggested Glass
Price
Wine-tasting-when, where, with, appearance, nose, taste, paired with
Opinion
Notes
Starred Rating
Whew! This would be great fun for taking along on a wine tour! What a great way to remember your adventure.
About half the book is filled with tabbed pages that are blank except for lines to divide each page into five sections.
My Modified Journal:
I haven’t had a chance to do more than a couple of pages but it should be enough to give you the idea. What I wanted wasn't another reference of pattern examples, but a place where I could keep notes about the patterns I'm creating. I've done so many, and when I go back to some of my older ones, I don't remember where I got the inspiration, or why I chose a certain name. I doubt I'll be sharing pictures from this--it's for me, when I want to know what I was thinking at the time I did a pattern.
Also--confession--I sometimes go back to a pattern and can't remember the steps. I have to rethink it through. Usually, there are tips I think of when I create one. It would be nice to have those tips written down, so I could look them up, instead of figuring them out a second time.
I do have much of this information in my Access database, but I like the idea of having it written down. I doubt I’ll go back and add many of my older patterns just for lack of time, but I’ll probably write up new ones as I create them.
I’m breaking down my patterns into sections based on the type of pattern. So far, I’ve decided on Weaves, Grids and Steampunk.
For each section I’ll have information like the title, the artist, where the inspiration came from, tips, information on shading, when it was created.
Really, the sky's the limit--you could personalize one of these Passions journal to your liking. You could even do both--use the populated section as intended, and make up your own for the blank sections.
Once again, I want to thank the European Paper Company for this prize package. I've enjoyed every bit of this--from dredging my brain to think up a Haiku to writing up the reviews. And I'll be enjoying my Moleskine Squared Journal, Volant and Wine Passions Journal for a long time to come!
Comments
Post a Comment