Go Slow but Go Sure – a Middlefield, Ohio leather collection

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies.

An August study.

Middlefield, Ohio has held its name since 1841, when the village noticed it sat midway on the old state road between Painesville and Warren. We made a small leather collection for that kind of place – luggage tags down to a catchall tray – and named it after the advice the first mayor gave the village in 1901.

First, the motto itself. GO SLOW BUT GO SURE, set in a ring around a back road that takes its time reaching the barn.

The Go Slow but Go Sure stamp plate circles a back road for the Middlefield, Ohio leather collection.

We pressed it blind into a quilt of leathers for the luggage tags. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Three leather luggage tags carry the Go Slow but Go Sure back-road stamp from Middlefield, Ohio.

The keychains carry the same ring in golden tan and deep espresso brown.

Two leather keychains carry the Go Slow but Go Sure stamp from the Middlefield, Ohio collection.

Next, the reason for the name. We built the guide post a traveler on the old state road would have wanted – Painesville off one arm, Warren off the other – and pressed it into the corner of the journals, warm gray beside classic tan.

A finger post points toward Painesville and Warren in the Go Slow but Go Sure leather collection of Middlefield, Ohio.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Two leather journals carry a Middlefield finger post in the Go Slow but Go Sure collection.

Then, sugar season. Forty gallons of sap go slowly into one sure gallon of syrup, so we hung a pail on the tap and let it wait – its hoops a nod to the pail works that opened here in 1895. The toiletry bags stack honeyed russet over deep espresso, syrup over walnut.

A maple tap and pail form the Forty to One stamp plate for the Middlefield, Ohio leather collection.

Two leather toiletry bags carry the Forty to One maple design from the Middlefield, Ohio collection.

And finally, the one we liked the most. A lattice-top pie for the catchall tray, with the only advice a tray can give – SAVE ROOM.

A lattice pie carries Save Room in the Go Slow but Go Sure leather collection of Middlefield, Ohio.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the golden tan of the leather.

A golden tan leather catchall tray carries a lattice pie from the Go Slow but Go Sure collection of Middlefield, Ohio.

We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.

If GO SLOW BUT GO SURE belongs on your shelf, or you'd like anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.