High Ground – a Houston Heights leather collection

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

An August study.

We spent August in Houston Heights, on the lifted ground above the rest of the city and along the old shopfront blocks of West Nineteenth, and pressed what we found there into leather – luggage tags, journals and the rest. The collection is called High Ground.

First, the mark the collection is named for. The Heights was platted in 1891 on ground some twenty-three feet above the city below, so we cut a surveyor's benchmark – the bar and arrow a survey crew chisels into stone to fix a height for good – and set HIGH GROUND over it, with the measure spelled out underneath. It looks genuinely beautiful.

The black-and-white High Ground stamp design fixes a survey benchmark for the High Ground leather collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

We ran it as a trio of luggage tags in black, caramel and navy. The black tag carries the stamp in gold.

Black, caramel and navy leather luggage tags carry the High Ground benchmark design from the High Ground collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

Next, PORCH WEATHER – the two words a Heights porch answers to for most of the year. The picture is a ceiling fan drawn from where you would actually see it: flat on your back in the shade, looking up.

The black-and-white Porch Weather stamp design turns a ceiling fan into a neighborhood roundel for the High Ground leather collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

It sits small in the corner of the toiletry bags, golden tan over dark espresso.

Golden tan and dark espresso leather toiletry bags carry the Porch Weather design from the High Ground collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

Then the keychains. We drew a Craftsman gable with its rafter tails and porch posts, and wrote THE HEIGHTS beneath it, so the fob says where the keys live. One in pale sand, one in deep porch green. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

The black-and-white Gable stamp design draws a Craftsman bungalow for the High Ground leather collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

Pale sand and forest-green leather keychains carry the Craftsman gable design from the High Ground collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

Then a pair of journals for West Nineteenth, the street that kept its shopkeepers' scale inside a sprawling city. We built the stamp like an old storefront fascia – dentiled cornice above, awning scallop below – because a journal is the daybook a merchant once kept behind the counter. One in dark espresso, one in deep wine.

The black-and-white West Nineteenth stamp design builds words into an old shopfront for the High Ground leather collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

Dark espresso and deep-wine leather journals carry the West Nineteenth shopfront design from the High Ground collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

And finally, the catchall tray. Pressed tin, the ceiling of every old shop on the street, repeats across the golden tan base – and in the center coffer a live-oak leaf has taken the rosette's place. The one design in the set that speaks without words.

The black-and-white Tin Ceiling stamp design replaces one rosette with a live-oak leaf for the High Ground leather collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

A golden tan leather catchall tray carries the Tin Ceiling design from the High Ground collection of Houston Heights, Texas.

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 you're in the Heights and you'd like any of this made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.