CoBloWriMo 3 - Archery kit gets a new look

So ages ago (about 4 years now) I took up archery again after a break of several decades. Well, that is if to count a few hours spent doing archery in summer camp as having 'taken it up!' :)

Anyway, I made myself a quiver out of 2 liter soda bottles, cardboard, duct tape and some other stuff and those quivers are still going strong. But I wanted to up my game a bit so I've been working on a belt quiver.

It all started with a painting

http://www.warfare.altervista.org/15/Carpaccio-St_Ursula-Martydom_of_the_Pilgrims-lg.htm

And some wonderful info about a project to recreate it

http://web.archive.org/web/20070210195459/http:/www.tirbriste.org/dmir/ArmsArmor/02/0215/0215.html

I am very interested in the cultural cross-over between Italy and Turkey in the renaissence period, and the instant I saw that painting I was struck by the resemblance of the quiver to Turkish quivers. Like this one c. 1550

http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/viewArtefact?id=373802

I had to have one!

Since I have never worked in leather before I worked with a friend to cut out the front and back sides, and then the pieces sat around the house......for an embarrassingly long time......until I saw this!

It's a page from a pattern book dated 1570-ish, and there in the lower left corner is the inspiration for the design on the front panel of my quiver.




I enlarged the pattern to the right width for my quiver pieces and then made several copies so I could cut and paste and play with the pieces until I had a pattern I liked

And then I traced it onto baking parchment and embossed the pattern into my dampened piece of leather by drawing over the lines with a ballpoint pen. The parchment worked well for the tracing, but  tape wouldn't stick to it to hold it in place. It shifted on the leather a bit. Something to watch out for if you try using it.

The next step is to wet the leather and score the pattern in with a knife, cutting about 1/2 way through the leather, it was scary at first, but pretty easy. Just very time consuming! And then I started tooling,

and tooling

and tooling......

I've been having trouble getting pictures to post but I'm back now! And the Quiver is almost Done. Watch for an update soon. :)