A Productive Saturday

I labored and labored yesterday and these are my fruits! Four new bow bags to gift to my Barony and also a padded liner for Boen's bow case. Better yet, I bought *nothing* new for these. Not even thread!

I recently decided we MUST reduce clutter in this apartment so I'm working my way toward throwing out stuff. Rather a lot of stuff, I hope! The nice thing about being ready to dispose of things is that I sometimes look at things--like a mattress pad with perfectly good padding that we never use because the sides which keep it on the mattress are shot--and see possibilities. Yesterday I saw that mattress pad as the solution to a problem we have at archery practice. We have several bows of various sizes which have been donated over the years, but only two bags! That means we jam several bows into a bag together where they promptly get all tangled up. Not good for them. Frustrating for us...the solution? More bow bags!

I cut the queen sized mattress pad crosswise into strips 13" wide (I got five strips) and my bengaline outer fabric into cross-wise stips 15" wide. I made them wider to allow some fabric for rounding around the liner, as well as turning at the seams and loss due to zig-zaging the long edges together. It turned out the cover fabric was about 2" wider than the liner so I had enough to make a drawstring casing to close the bag at the top. Order of sewing: turn and finish side edges for the casing openings, zig-zag long edges of liner and cover together, zig-zag lower edges of liner and cover together--stretching liner to fit,stitch casing to cover and finish top edge of liner(stretching to fit again), add pocket (oh yeah, I cut pockets from scrap fabric I made when I neatened the edge of my fabric before cutting. Pockets are always good!), stitch long edges together, set bottom of long seam so it falls at the center of the bottom of the bag and stitch bottom together with two rows of stitching, turn the finished bag, Add drawstring.

You can see some of the details in this closer shot.

The final touch was to thread the drawstring through the casing a take a few stitches at the center point. No pulling the cord out of the casing by accident!

Quiver Photos!

I know it is silly, but I am ridiculously proud of my two quivers, 100% made from stuff I had laying around the house!

I covered them in black linen and used some of my vast stash of 5" metal rings to make really strong supports for the straps.

All A Quiver!

(Couldn't resist. Now you know that I am Just NOT That Strong. ;) )

I like my first attempt at making a quiver from stuff I had at home but the best thing it did for me was let me experiment enough to realize that a) a stiffer form would be a lot easier to use, and b) I'm not really a belt quiver kind of girl.

So, on to quiver #2!

(Actually twin quivers, which allowed me to take lots of pictures after I figured out that the first one was going to work.)

This time I want to make something stiffer. Prefferably something that can be used as either a back OR a standing quiver, and if I can figure out a way to make a protective cover for the feathered ends of my arrows when not in use, so much the better.

Based on the idea of expandable cardboard shipping tubes I'm trying for a cylinder about 2/3's of the length of my arrows which can be fit inside another larger tube to cover the fletching when not in use.

I was thinking about buying PVC pipe in two sizes to make the forms, but since I didn't get to the store before my patience wore out I went with stuff I had in the house instead. You know what we have a lot of? Seltzer bottles! And cardboard!

It takes three per quiver, one with the original bottom left intact, and two cut to retain only the straight-sided sections.

Since I am trying for a blow-by-blow rendition, I'll mention that I found my kitchen shears worked well on both the cardboard and plastic parts. I pinched the bottle to make a place to start my cut



then hacked the top off above the label



and after the top was off I cut an even top line by using the bottle label as a guide. Note that I'm cutting while looking at the inside of the bottle. I found it was much easier to manage the scissors on this inside curve and I got a straighter line as a result.



After I evened out the tops I took off the lables and discovered that at the bottom of the label my bottle already had a nifty guideline so I pinched and cut again on two of my set of three bottles.







Then I connected the three sections together with clear packing tape (it's been 'send wedding present' season at my house so we had it) inside and out.

That makes a nice tube at a good height for my arrows and back so the next step was to weight the bottom a bit to help it hang straight when empty and stand up if set on the ground. i used a leftover bottom piece to make a false bottom with pennies sandwiched inside for weight. I put two pennies in each of the little foot ridges at the bottoms tacked the tube on top and taped the whole thing together. (Note: that's not really heavy enough to keep it standing upright on an uneven surface or in a wind so i made a later adjustment.)








Then I stiffened it with cardboard around the outside. (Note: I later added a layer of cardboard on the inside of the tube also. It makes it heavier, stiffens it a bit more and keeps the arrow tips from pulling the tape off of the inside of the bottle.)

I finished it up by adding a bottom of cardboard and the plastic lid from a to-go order of soup (it was the perfect size!) and stuffing the inside bottom with a bit of the packing foam which came with my arrows to protect the tips.

I had to add a chunk of fallen branch to weight the quiver down at practice since the wind has been pretty frisky, but other than that It works!

Next up, adding a fabric cover and strap.

Kill the napkin. Kill the napkin. KILL that napkin!

Ok. Thursday night? I was very luck to shoot an arrow into the back board of the target. The grass of our local archery range and I got very well aquainted. But today? All but 5 of my arrows hit the back board and four of them hit the target!

See!?!



Four of those holes are MINE!

Of course, I can't quite remember which four of those holes are mine but I know I had a nice triangular grouping, not on the edge, in the last round of shooting. Woohoo!

Oh. And by the way, the quiver worked very well and I'm pretty sure it helped. The said it was important to leave your feet in place and approach the shot the same way each time so I could figure out what to adjust to improve my aim. The quiver means I don't have to scramble around on the ground for my arrows and lets me stay focused. :)

And Clarence used the bow Jessi lent me and it works! I'll have to build up some muscle before it will work well for me, but it is so nice to have at least one bow to bring to the local shoot. Now I just need to get my arrows tipped...

Yep. Hooked. They even have us talking about getting war points at Pennsic!

What will that girl do next? Archery!

After a couple of years of thinking about it and saying I was *going* to do it I finally got myself off to an archery practice this week. So much fun! Seriously, even with my complete inability to hit the target. (I did hit the back board a few times. :) ) I loved it! I think both Boen and I may be hooked.

We are at least interested enough to be going to our Barony's archery practice tomorrow and in the last hour or so I have suddenly developed an intention to make a hip quiver! I confess I was inspired by a photo set I found through the good offices of Pinterest. Evrard Archer has posted a wonderful set of photos on Flicker at http://www.flickr.com/photos/23516362@N00/sets/72157625860081799/with/5980908926/ and they contained enough information--including a pattern-- to get me thinking that it was something we could do. Thank you, Evrard Archer! I hope I am someday lucky enough to take your class!

Since I hope to have a useable quiver tomorrow and no leather in the house I am throwing something together from stuff I do have, fabric, metal rings, and a cream cheese container.

Here goes!

The container is approximately the size of the finished size of the bottom from his pattern and will keep the arrow tips from puncturing the fabric. At least that is the plan.





I cut off the bottom of the container about an inch up the side, cut a disk from the lid the right size to make a double thickness of plastic at the bottom, and cut the remainder of the side at an angle to make a support for the top of the quiver.




Some rather random cutting and stitching later and I have this





We'll be adding straps tomorrow when we try it out to see if it helps. Believe me, I need all the help I can get!