In From the Cold × Leatherius Woodman – a Stowe, Vermont leather collection

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

An August study.

For Stowe, Vermont – a collection in leather called In From the Cold.

First, we drew Mount Mansfield the way the valley reads it – a face lying against the sky, with forehead, nose, lips and chin labeled along the ridge, and the Chin standing tallest at 4,393 feet.

The Mount Mansfield face stamp plate from the In From the Cold leather collection of Stowe, Vermont.

It runs lengthwise across the trio – navy for the blue-gray profile the town sees at dusk, deep green for the forests beneath it. The black tag carries the ridge in gold.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with Mount Mansfield's labeled face from the In From the Cold collection of Stowe, Vermont.

Next, the single chair that first carried skiers up the mountain in 1940 – FIRST CHAIR is also the ride you wake up early for. The black fob wears the chair in gold, first light on the hill; the deep green one is for the trails the CCC crews cut through the evergreens in the thirties.

The 1940 single-chair stamp plate from the In From the Cold leather collection of Stowe, Vermont.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Black and forest-green leather keychains stamped with Stowe's 1940 single chair from the In From the Cold collection.

Then we crossed Gold Brook on the covered bridge that has stood there since about 1840, and drew it by its bones – a Howe truss, thick timber diagonals braced against thin iron verticals.

The Gold Brook Howe-truss bridge stamp plate from the In From the Cold leather collection of Stowe, Vermont.

On the toiletry bags it sits low in the corner, honeyed russet over dark espresso – maple season over old timber.

Honeyed russet and dark espresso leather toiletry bags stamped with Gold Brook Bridge from the In From the Cold collection.

After that, sugaring arithmetic. Forty gallons of sap boil down to one gallon of syrup, so the journal cover carries a tapped maple with a single drop falling, and the words FORTY TO ONE underneath. A journal keeps the same ratio.

The Forty to One maple-sugaring stamp plate from the In From the Cold leather collection of Stowe, Vermont.

Warm tan and deep green – the syrup and the sugarbush.

Warm tan and forest-green leather journals stamped with the Forty to One maple design from the In From the Cold collection.

And finally, the design the collection is named for – a fire in a ring of stones, seen straight from above, stamped at the center of the golden tan tray. Whatever your pockets carried in from the cold ends up gathered around it.

The overhead stone-ring fire stamp plate from the In From the Cold leather collection of Stowe, Vermont.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

A golden tan leather catchall tray stamped with the In From the Cold fire-ring design of Stowe, Vermont.

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 Stowe and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.

P.S.

A navy leather luggage tag stamped with Mount Mansfield's labeled face from the In From the Cold collection of Stowe, Vermont.

A forest-green leather luggage tag stamped with Mount Mansfield's labeled face from the In From the Cold collection of Stowe, Vermont.

A black leather luggage tag gold-stamped with Mount Mansfield's labeled face from the In From the Cold collection of Stowe, Vermont.

A black leather keychain gold-stamped with Stowe's 1940 single chair from the In From the Cold collection.

A forest-green leather keychain stamped with Stowe's 1940 single chair from the In From the Cold collection.

A warm tan leather journal stamped with the Forty to One maple design from the In From the Cold collection of Stowe, Vermont.

A forest-green leather journal stamped with the Forty to One maple design from the In From the Cold collection of Stowe, Vermont.