The Five Villages – a leather collection from Montague, Massachusetts

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

An August study.

In Montague, Massachusetts, an 1834 grist mill still stands over the Sawmill River, with shelves of old books above the falls and five villages spread around the water that built them. We pressed the place into leather and called the collection The Five Villages.

First, the map. Montague calls itself the Town of Five Villages, so we cut the town as a wheel – MONTAGUE at the hub, and a wavy river line running out to each of the five names on the rim. The map doubles as a waterwheel, which is how the villages got here in the first place.

The Five Villages river-and-waterwheel die design for the Montague, Massachusetts leather collection.

We pressed it blind into deep moss green and honeyed russet, with a third tag in pale warm greige. It looks genuinely beautiful.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with The Five Villages river-wheel design from Montague, Massachusetts.

Next, one for the keys. Montague is famously easy to drive past, so we let the road leave the highway, switch back twice and arrive at a small mill above the water – WORTH THE DETOUR. Pale sea-blue for the river, deep espresso for the mill timber.

The Worth the Detour mill-road die design for The Five Villages leather collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

Two leather keychains stamped with Worth the Detour from The Five Villages collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

Then the wash bags. Eleven mill sites once ran on the Sawmill River's current, so the kit that handles your mornings carries an overshot wheel and the oldest local logic – LET THE RIVER DO THE WORK. We stacked it in navy over chestnut.

The Let the River Do the Work waterwheel die for The Five Villages leather collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

Two leather toiletry bags stamped with a working waterwheel from The Five Villages collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

The catchall tray, in golden tan, got the millstone. We dressed it the way the old millers dressed theirs, furrows fanned around a square eye, with MONTAGUE arched over the stone and 1834 beneath it – the year the grist mill above the falls went up. Whatever the day grinds out, the stone holds.

The Montague 1834 millstone die for The Five Villages leather collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

An Arizona leather catchall tray stamped with the Montague 1834 millstone from The Five Villages collection.

And finally, the one we liked the most. In Montague the books stand directly over a waterfall, so on the journal we shelved a row of spines and left one gap for the water to fall through – LEAVE ROOM FOR THE RIVER. A journal is the book still getting written; the gap is where it goes. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather – deep wine beside warm tan, like the shelves it came from.

The Leave Room for the River books-and-water die for The Five Villages leather collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

Two leather journals stamped with Leave Room for the River from The Five Villages collection of Montague, Massachusetts.

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