The Tending Year, Volume I-C – a leather stamping study for gardeners

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

A September study. Volume I-C.

A small collection we call The Tending Year – the gardener's own deeds, pressed into leather. Four stamps, each taken from something a garden genuinely asks of its keeper.

First, we cut last year's perennial down to the stubs and drew one new shoot rising between them, under the words IT COMES BACK. A hardy perennial keeps that promise every spring – and a luggage tag makes the same promise about the bag it hangs on.

Black-and-white die artwork of a returning shoot between cut stems beneath IT COMES BACK for The Tending Year leather collection, Volume I-C.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

A forest-green leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

A poppy-red leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

A caramel leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

Keys make the same round trip every day, so the keychains carry it too – one in deep forest green, one in pale sea-blue.

A forest-green leather keychain blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

A turquoise leather keychain blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

Next, the deadheader's exception. The manuals say to snip the faded blooms so more will come, and to leave a few standing – a dried seedhead is a bird feeder the garden built itself. We let one coneflower stand and set a cardinal on its stem, with LEAVE SOME FOR THE BIRDS written beneath the pair.

Black-and-white die artwork of a cardinal on a coneflower seedhead above LEAVE SOME FOR THE BIRDS for The Tending Year leather collection, Volume I-C.

On the toiletry bags it sits small in the corner, in honeyed russet over deep brown – the garden's own late-October colors.

Indian Summer and dark-espresso leather toiletry bags blind-stamped with a cardinal, seedhead and LEAVE SOME FOR THE BIRDS from The Tending Year collection.

Then, the first rule of the nursery trade, RIGHT PLANT RIGHT PLACE, set in a ring around a seedling going into the ground exactly where it belongs. We pressed it on a catchall tray with a straight face – the tray is the right place, and by evening the keys and the reading glasses that land there are the right plants.

Black-and-white circular die artwork of a rooted seedling and RIGHT PLANT RIGHT PLACE for The Tending Year leather collection, Volume I-C.

In golden tan it looks like it has always lived by the back door.

An Arizona leather catchall tray blind-stamped with a rooted seedling and RIGHT PLANT RIGHT PLACE from The Tending Year collection.

And finally, the one we liked the most. A torn-open packet spilling seed, above the words NOTES FOR NEXT SPRING – because every garden journal is a letter to a reader one winter away, usually its own writer.

Black-and-white die artwork of an open seed packet above NOTES FOR NEXT SPRING for The Tending Year leather collection, Volume I-C.

It looks genuinely beautiful – once in deep navy, once in pale greige.

A blueberry leather journal blind-stamped with a seed packet and NOTES FOR NEXT SPRING from The Tending Year collection.

A gray-sand leather journal blind-stamped with a seed packet and NOTES FOR NEXT SPRING from The Tending Year collection.

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 the shop this study was imagined for and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.

P.S.

An alternate forest-green leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

An alternate poppy-red leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.

An alternate caramel leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a returning shoot and IT COMES BACK from The Tending Year collection.