Midori Knitted Book Band Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

The Midori Knitted Book Band takes the concept of a notebook cozy to the next level. The books have never been cozier! It looks cute and serves several functions, an achievement I can only aspire to on my best days.

The stretchy sleeve is made from a soft knitted elastic fabric that slides over your notebook like a leg warmer. Both the top and bottom edge are cuffed, creating a capped pocket where you can stash pens, stickers, or even more notebooks. Because the sleeve spans the width of the notebook, and because the fabric is so stretchy, you can fit all kinds of tools in the pocket. On one side, a pen sleeve pocket is stitched into the fabric. Which did not stop me from putting more pens into the rest of the space as well.

The sleeve also serves to hold the notebook shut with the contents safely inside. It's a beefed-up version of the elastic closure bands so many notebooks use, but with much added security. It would be perfect for keeping a writing kit assembled for travel, where the notebook and its pens and accessories are all secure in its cute little sleeping bag.

On the downside, it's secure enough that it's not very convenient to get into the notebook quickly. I wouldn't recommend it for a planner or commonplace book, where you might want to quickly look something up or jot something down. It's much better suited to a project notebook where you'd settle in, unpack your cute little bundle, and work for a while before packing it all back up again. I can see it working well for a reading or gardening journal, or something similar. For me, I've found that adding barriers to using my notebooks often results in me not using the notebook, so it may not be the right tool for me.

The stretchy band is designed to fit A6 to B6 notebooks. I was able to get mine onto an A5 notebook, too, though this would likely permanently stretch out the fabric and it does limit the amount of items that can fit into the pocket when it's at its maximum expansion.

The Midori Knitted Book Band comes in a variety of colors, each with a different ribbed pattern to the fabric, and costs $36.50. I do think that's a little expensive for what you get. It's a very simple design made with fairly basic materials. But it is very cute, and it carries the hallowed Midori brand name, which explains some of the extra cost. In any case, it's still an accessible price and a versatile product.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Midori MD Cotton Notebook Review

When you are talking about paper for pens - especially fountain pens - the word “cotton” isn’t exactly the descriptor I’m looking for. Midori has changed my thought process, though, as their Midori MD Cotton paper defies my preconceived notions of the name.

Midori MD Cotton uses 20% cotton pulp in its paper formulation, designed to give the page a softer feel with any writing instrument. While yes, the Cotton page may provide a slightly softer writing surface compared to standard MD paper, that’s not the reason you should consider buying it. You should consider buying it because it performs well with most inks, including fountain pen inks.

I’ve been a long-time user of Midori’s standard notebooks. In fact, they are some of my favorites, and I’d rank them as highly as any other paper product in my rotation. How does the classic MD compare to MD Cotton? They each have their pros and cons.

For starters, MD Cotton paper has a whiter page. It’s not stark white, like Clairefontaine Triomphe, but compared to Standard MD there is a clear difference. I think that is the Standard MD’s biggest drawback. I don’t mind it, but it is a non-starter for some. But be careful, this exact Midori MD A5 Square Cotton Paper Pad has a whiter page than the Thick version, which I am not reviewing today. (Midori’s entire Cotton lineup is confusingly sized and formatted, so pay close attention.)

Lines are finer on the Standard MD (left,) although it may be tough to see in the image above.

With fountain pen nibs and inks, my lines are wider on Cotton than Standard. This is a result of the softness of the Cotton page, which is by design. It’s not as soft or cushioned as something like Cosmo Air Light, and I didn’t notice it much when writing. But when I compared Cotton side by side to Standard, the difference was clear - especially for someone like myself who likes fine lines.

Ink is a bit more visible through the back of the Cotton (left.)

Both papers handle feathering and bleeding well, as in there is almost none. The Schmidt Rollerball ink did bleed through the back of Cotton where I filled in the square, but wasn’t bad otherwise. Cotton does have more ghosting, so Standard is a better choice for writing on both sides of the page.

Cotton does show ink color better given the whiter background, but it’s not the runaway I would have expected. I still see good color variation in the dual-shading Sailor Manyo Fuji ink I swabbed on both.

Color is a bit more saturated on Cotton (right,) but both pages have a good range of shades.

The only outlier in comparison was with pencil graphite. My Blackwing Extra Firm is completely fine on the Standard MD page, but on Cotton it is more like “oh heck yes.” The slight texture of the Cotton page doesn’t affect fountain pen nibs negatively, but is a huge bonus to pencils.

That Midori MD Cotton is as good with fountain pens and inks as it is with pencils says a lot. If I had to pick only one of these papers for personal use I’m sticking with the Standard MD, but for the more inky inclined, I think Cotton makes a great choice. I’m certainly going to keep using it for doodles and drawings, if not writing.

The A5 Square Cotton Paper Pad is $16.00 for 176 pages, which is priced well for a premium paper product like this. And if you need a larger - or weirder - format (what is F-size, anyway?) then Midori is sure to have you covered.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Midori MD Diary Stickers Review

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

It’s apparently planner season and since I don’t use a traditional planner, I decided to get these Midori MD Diary Stickers from Vanness Pens when I was at their shop back in late March (thank you to them for providing these items for review.) These stickers from Midori are meant to be used in notebooks (or really anything) where you need monthly layouts. They come in three sizes (Small, Medium, and Large), but I am only reviewing the Small and Medium ones.

D Diary Stickers in M (left) and S.

Both sticker sets come with the following:

• 16 monthly calendar stickers (starting with December of the prior year and going through January of the following year). The sets I got were for 2024, so the monthly stickers went from December 2023 to January 2025.
• 2 yearly calendar stickers for the current year and next year (in my case, 2024 and 2025).

Small (top) and Medium monthly and year stickers.

The Small stickers measure roughly 5.5” x 3.75” (or 14 cm x 9.5 cm), while the Medium Stickers are 6.75” x 4.5” (17.2 cm x 11.8 cm). The Large set is 8” x 5.5” (20 cm x 13.8 cm).

The monthly calendar stickers are Monday - Sunday and also have the year in the bottom right corner, which is very handy as there are 2 December and 2 January stickers. They also have Sundays and Japanese public holidays circled. Japanese and international holidays are noted in Japanese as well. Other than Christmas Eve & Christmas and New Year’s Eve & New Year’s Day, the holidays aren’t particularly useful for most folks.

Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve (as confirmed by Google translate) both fell on Sundays last year.

Since I don’t use A6 for my bullet journal, I decided to use the Small monthly sticker as a tracker for dental hygiene and skincare. I didn’t want to adhere the sticker to my bathroom mirror, so I used washi tape to put it on, where I tracked my skincare routine (A = AM, P=PM, and checkmark for evening flossing/brushing - I know, I know, I need to floss more, lol). I kept a Zebra Sarasa 03 handy to mark it up. I often forget what I did by the time I update my habit tracker, so this was a handy way to keep track.

I’m sure this wasn’t the intended use case but I kinda liked tracking things on the mirror.

The Small stickers fit nicely in an A6 notebook, and the Medium stickers are good for an A5 notebook. It could also fit on B6, but with very little margin on the sides.

The Small Diary sticker in a B6 notebook (I did not affix it to the notebook because this “The Little Prince” notebook is my only B6 notebook.)

The Medium Diary sticker in a B6 notebook - this would be more difficult to put in place due to the minimal margins and the curling (see below.)

The stickers are fairly thick and the sticker release/backing paper is much thicker than what you’d typically get with regular stickers. Midori recommends peeling just one side of the release paper, positioning the sticker onto your page, and then removing the other side. I didn’t follow this recommendation for the A6 monthly sticker. Even though the release paper is scored down the back, peeling the stickers took a bit of effort and the resulting curling made it a bit annoying to deal with. It was mostly fine once I got it on the page and was able to close the notebook and have it weighed down by another book for a few minutes.

This is what it looks like when I peeled both backing papers off of the sticker.

This is how the Small sticker looked when I first affixed it to the page. I quickly removed it and decided to move it to another Hobonichi.

Moved to another notebook and squished it down for a while and the sticker page is now behaving. You can also see the text underneath that I was covering up (more on that below.)

I used the Medium sticker in my A5 Leuchtturm and it fit just fine with some margins to spare on the top and bottom (I like to use washi tape to give it a little bit of flare and so I’m not just hoarding washi tape, lol). Following Midori’s recommendation to only peel and stick one half at a time did not make a difference in the curling but it did make placement a little easier. It was almost impossible not to bend it backwards when removing the backing paper so there is a bit of a crease in the middle after peeling. The creases are more noticeable in some angles than others.

You can just make out the horizontal crease in the middle of the Medium stickers.

The crease is much more prominent on the Small sticker in the Hobonichi. Not sure if it’s because I removed both backing papers or not.

I decided to follow instructions (for a change) and only peeled one side. It’s still very curly.

Because my current A5 Leuchtturm has 120gsm paper, you don’t really see much ghosting, so you don’t see any writing below the sticker from the other side. With the Hobonichi though, you can see what’s underneath, although the writing is “extra” visible because I put the sticker on top of the writing, whereas the A5 had writing on the other side of the page. You can get an idea as to how “see through” the stickers are, if you are going to put it on top of an already-written-on page.

The Medium sticker in the A5 Leuchtturm.

The stickers are fountain pen friendly, which is great because I only use FPs in my bullet journal. There was some slight smearing when I smoothed the Small sticker onto the sheet because I wrote on the sticker before sticking it in the notebook. It is the same paper that is in the Midori MD notebooks (but not MD Cotton), which means it is cream-colored and not white. The paper is fairly smooth but slightly toothier than Tomoe River. It was nice to write on and I didn’t have issues with the few FPs I used on them.

Overall, aside from the not-super-easy peeling and the resulting curling of the sticker, I liked the convenience of having the monthly sticker for my undated notebook. I used to print out monthly calendars and tape them to my bujo and now I don’t have to. I also liked that there are stickers for 14 months. I think the only thing I could do without is the holiday text since it isn’t useful for non-Japanese customers and it takes up room in an already limited space. I don’t know if I would use the yearly stickers but it’s nice to have for reference.

You can find the Midori Diary Sticker Small 2025, Midori Diary Sticker Large, as well as the day free/undated Midori Diary Sticker (same size as the Small), on the Vanness website. The Medium Diary Stickers have been ordered but are still making their way to the shop, so that’s what I’m going to be ordering when it arrives in the next week or so.

(Disclaimer: The Midori Diary Stickers were provided for review by Vanness Pens at no charge. The notebooks pictured are my own.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!