A small leather keepsake for words you don’t want to forget — worn on you, not stored on a screen.
If a few words could stay this close — which would you keep?
Made to be carried for years.
Grain Patch is cut from semi-chrome tanned leather — chrome and vegetable worked together. Supple and stable, yet full of the grain and character that only a vegetable tan gives.
It ages the way good leather ages, softening and deepening with the days it spends beside you. That living surface — its grain — is what gives Grain Patch its name.
The shape is familiar for a reason. It belongs to the language of care — the small form we reach for when something needs to be protected.
Under the raised center is where it reads — the quiet point where a tap of your phone opens what you chose to carry.
On the surface is a quiet code: ID, pressed in braille. Short for Identity, it marks the thing this patch is here to carry: you. Subtle enough to feel like texture, but still readable by touch.
Made to stay close.
Dawn, Dusk, and Night.
Grain Patch comes as a set of three. Choose a colorway — each set holds three patches, in its own combination of colors.
Dawn
Wine, Natural, and Navy.
Light emerging between warmth and blue darkness.
Set of three
Dusk
Natural, Orange Pekoe, and Charcoal Grey.
The moment when light becomes color, then shadow.
Set of three
Night
Charcoal Grey, Navy, and Black.
Three depths of darkness, each holding a different trace of light.
Set of three
On the box back
Write. Tap. Remember — everything, printed on the back.
Materials
Semi-chrome tanned leather — cowhide for Natural and Orange, lamb for the others — with an embedded NFC chip and adhesive backing.
Contents
A set of three Grain Patch patches.
Maker
Kyoto Makotoya · 111 Hachioji-cho, Shomen-sagaru, Nishikiyamachi-dori, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto 600-8139, Japan
Not a medical device. Not for wound care. Keep away from infants and small children — contains small parts.
One to keep.
One to give.
One to leave empty.
Whichever colorway you choose, a set holds three. What you do with them is yours to decide.
Keep
For the words you carry yourself.
For your lockets or charms.
Give
Words travel further, and last longer, than advice.
For your daughter.
Leave empty
For words that haven’t arrived yet.
For when the time comes.
Write. Tap. Remember.
Grain Patch is a small leather patch you keep where your day happens — on a wallet, a phone, the inside of a bag. On its own, it keeps to itself. Hold your phone to it, and the words you placed inside come back.
Write
Choose the words that matter, and place them inside — a line you live by, a name, a way home.
Tap
Hold your phone close. There’s no screen, no battery, nothing to charge. It waits until you ask.
Remember
The words come back only when you reach for them. The rest of the time, they stay yours.
The other half of Grain Patch.
Grain Patch is written with Seal — a small, free app made only for it. Choose what to place, write it, and hold your phone to the patch to seal it in.
For iPhone. Android coming soon.
- 1
Choose your words
Type a line worth carrying — a thought, a promise, a line to return to.
- 2
Words worth carrying
Not sure what to write? Seal opens with a word worth carrying — a quiet library to begin from.
- 3
See what you’re placing
A last look at exactly what goes onto the patch.
- 4
Hold your phone to it
Rest the top of your phone over the patch to write it in.
- 5
Sealed
It’s on the patch, ready to carry.
- 6
Read it back
Hold your phone to the patch any day, and your words open — quietly, like this.
Words are the heart of it. But a patch can hold a little more.
Your name, number, and note, ready to be saved.
Share your portfolio, shop, playlist, or social page.
Save a meaningful place, a meeting point, or a child’s way back.
Yours, and no one else’s.
Your words are kept for you, not for us. The key that opens them lives on the patch alone, never on our side. And a place you save stays on your own phone, and travels no further.
It stays quiet until you need it.
You won’t read it every day. That isn’t what it’s for. It rides along on the outside of a bag or a wallet, doing nothing, asking for nothing.
Then a nervous morning comes — a room you’d rather not walk into, a call you’d rather not make. You hold your phone to it, and there they are. The words you chose, still with you. Not advice, not a reminder. Just there.
The practical part.
Everything else you might want to ask before it becomes yours.
To read a patch, no. A tap opens it on any phone that can read a tag — nothing to install.
To write one, yes: Seal, a small free app made only for Grain Patch. It’s on the App Store for iPhone now, and an Android version is coming soon.
No. There’s no sign-up, no email, and no account. Open Seal and write.
As many times as you like. Words can be replaced whenever they need to change.
If you’d rather they never change, Seal can seal a patch permanently. A sealed patch can’t be rewritten or erased — so it asks you twice before it does.
No. There’s no battery and no screen — nothing to charge, and nothing to replace. It simply waits.
Three patches in one colorway — Dawn, Dusk, or Night — in their own box. It arrives ready to keep, or to give exactly as it comes.
Keep it away from water, and wipe it with a dry cloth. It is meant to darken and soften with the days it spends beside you — that is the grain doing its work, not wear.
From a Japanese tannery, as a by-product of the food industry. It is cut, finished, and boxed in Kyoto.
English, Japanese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Spanish, and French.
Finding its way into shops.
Grain Patch is made in small numbers in Kyoto, and reaches you through the shops that choose to carry it.
For shops
Grain Patch is available wholesale on Faire, alongside the rest of our leather series.
Order on Faire →For everyone else
Looking for a shop near you, or hoping to carry it yourself? Tell us where you are, and we’ll point you the right way.
Get in touch →Grain Patch began with a question about words. If you’d like the longer story of how it came to take this shape, it’s being told in four parts.
Read on Substack →