Today was a snow day off from trapping and so I asked Winemaker what she would like me to do since I was home….she said, nothing.  She didn’t count on me being home and she would continue to do what she had planned and they didn’t include me!  OK!  Then I’ll try and make myself a quiver to hold my arrows.

I went scrounging for materials and this is what I found:

I have been on line and found what others have done using PVC pipe, Pringles tubes, even tubes that Christmas wrap comes on.  But I want mine to look special.  How special?  Well, I’ve never made one so let’s learn and do this together.

I have some leather from a very poorly built leather scabbard I won, a fairly large piece of wool material that came from Marla Jo making my capote many years ago.  A bag of leather scraps.  The trimmings off a felt hat.  Lots of artificial sinew and a needle and scissors.

I have more than that, but I had decided this is what I was going to make my quiver out of and I really am leaning toward the wool material.

Any good quiver is going to have an open end in which to put the arrows….right?  So I grabbed the felt scraps and bent it around in a circle….hmmmmm….looks like if I attached the two ends together it would make an adequate quiver opening.

So, I made a cut and got a board, hammer and a nail….gotta make holes in order to sew it together.

The needle and sinew were next to grab and sew, sew, sew….

Ok, once I have both ends made, how am I going to hold them together?  Gotta find something.

Whenever I’m faced with an unknown like this, I wander around the house looking for something that might work.  Down in the basement I found an old wooden ramrod.  That would work just fine.  I came up, made a guesstimate as to how long it should be and went to the shop to cut it off.  I figured about 16 inches should be good enough for my quiver.  Out at the shop I saw a wooden dowel under my toolbox lid!  Hey!  That is smaller in diameter, plenty stiff….that will work just fine!

I put the ramrod back and pushed the dowel into the sewn parts of the felt ends.

Hey, now I need a way for the arrows to stop and not drop through to the ground.  A wood plug?  Leather?  How will I attach it to the felt circle?  I could cut a wood plug the size of the inside of the felt circle and then tack it with small tacks or brads….hmmmmm, again.

Scrounging through the bag of leather scraps I found an old mountain man belt I had made about 30 years ago.  It was about 3 inches wide and who says the bottom felt has to be round.  Why not oval?  That’s it!  If I place the leather on the outside of the felt and scrunch it together and sew it, it will make a fine bottom for my quiver!

Heck ya!  That will work just fine!  Now for the outer part….leather or wool cloth?  Leather?  Wool Cloth?  I tried them both and came away thinking the wool cloth looked a whole lot better than the leather.  I’ll make a leather one some other time.

I placed the wool on the parts I had and held it firmly with both hands.  It looked like it will work just fine.  After all, I’m just making a bag to hold arrows in right?  Once I was convinced it would work, I pinched down on the parts where I would begin my sewing and grabbed up the needle and sinew.  Stitching this way and that (I’m not very good at sewing) and trying not to make it look like too much of a mess, I finally arrived at something that will hold arrows and also tie onto my belt.

It might not look like much to you, but to me it will be a whole lot better than carrying around a box that holds my arrows!

There you go!  Quivers made easy!

Bears Butt

March 3, 2015