Our family journey into archery crafting | #LRCrafts - DIY Passion: if you can think it, you can make it
If it’s not your first time here, I suppose you know that my husband and I share several passions: DIY and crafts, Irish dance, historical reenactment, just to name the main ones. We first met thanks to our first shared hobby, Irish dance, but soon discovered we had something else in common.
As part of my job, I also organized Medieval events, and had been recently gifted a small beginner’s bow (I named it Angus, from Merida’s horse in Disney’s Brave!). I loved shooting with it in the fields around my home. I soon discovered archery was a sport that Locutus wanted to try as well.
As we attended our first Medieval reenactment as tourists together, we ended up buying two bows on a whim, not realizing it would lead to a whole new hobby – and a lot of DIY projects!
Our first archery DIY project: a bow and arrows stand
After getting our bows, we decided to make a wall-mounted stand to hold them and their quivers.
It was an easy project: two wooden poles attached vertically to the wall, each with hooks for the bows to rest horizontally, plus two lower hooks to hang the quivers. To protect the bows when not in use during the off-season, we lined the hooks with soft leather. Locutus’s grandmother also sewed fabric sheaths to carry the bows around without damage.
Speaking of quivers, I had mine made by a leather artisan I knew through organizing Medieval events. Locutus’ quiver, on the other hand, was handmade by his grandmother, who used to work in a shoe factory before retiring.
This stand was a proud addition to a blank wall next to our bed in our first home, where we’d moved just a couple of months before buying our bows.
Making arrows (and a custom jig for fletching)
We had our bows, quivers and also a stand for all. Next, we dove right into making our own arrows.
I got a bit ambitious here and decorated some of them with hand-drawn Celtic knots. My plan was to create a different symbol for each of us. Unfortunately, I had to stop once I realized how easily arrows can break: not worth the time drawing!
The actual making of the arrows wasn’t as hard as we thought. We bought pre-made shafts, straight and balanced, strong enough for the draw weights of our bows.
The fletching, or attaching the feathers to arrows, can be tricky, but my husband, ever the problem-solver, designed a custom jig to make the process faster and more accurate.
On a leftover wooden board, my husband milled three lines placed at 120° angles around a center hole. The milled lines were slightly inclined, because the fletches are glued onto the shaft in a slight spiral to provide more spin and greater in-flight stability. Each fletch is placed inside two metal bars, closed with pins. After applying glue, the metal bars are pushed through the milled lines until they touch the shaft. Elastics help keep the fletches in position until the glue has cured.
It’s a small but effective tool that saved us loads of time when making arrows.
Our DIY targets
And obviously we needed something to shoot at, so we built a wooden target out of old pallets and set it up in my husband’s grandmother’s garden. That garden became our little archery range, and we spent quite a few afternoons practicing there.
The rest of the family got involved too! First my sister-in-law, who soon started practicing with us. Then my dad, who made burlap-sack targets and joined us to shoot in his fields whenever he had the chance.
Archery ended up becoming a family thing.
My father-in-law also got into the spirit, starting to make bows himself. We all went into the family woods to gather walnut branches for him to craft with. He was one of the most enthusiastic of us, for sure. My sister-in-law was the first in the family to get a bow made by her dad, and it was really cool to see how archery had spread among us all.
Fun fact: we even incorporated archery into our wedding! Our tableau mariage was a map of Ireland, and the guests’ names hung from pencil-arrows.
As we got deeper into the archery world, we started participating in Medieval reenactments. For the largest Medieval event of the year at the castle where I worked, I introduced the archery competition.
What made the event extra special was a movable target crafted by my father-in-law. He was so enthusiastic about the archery passion that he built a pendulum-style target for the final round. It worked by releasing a rope, causing the target to swing like a pendulum, making it much harder to hit! The pendulum target quickly became the centerpiece of the competition, and I still remember the intense excitement during that final round.
Locutus won three times in a row, which was pretty awesome!
The Master Bowyer scene
When the 2020 lockdowns struck, we obviously had to pause our archery activities. I was also pregnant with our first child, so the stop was necessary despite the pandemic.
Once things started to return to normal, we dove back into archery during the Live Nativity Reenactment of Zavattarello in 2022. We set up the Master Bowyer scene, where we showcased the traditional craft of bow-making.
With our targets and tools on display – including the pendulum target – my husband and his uncle spent two evenings crafting bows in front of hundreds of tourists. They set up a rack with all our bows and arrows, and Locutus even demonstrated testing an arrow by shooting at a practice target! It’s always an amazing experience when you can share something you love with others.
What next?
Archery has been such an important part of our crafting journey, especially as part of our historical reenactments. It’s not just about the sport, it’s also a wonderful way to dive into DIY projects, from making bows and arrows to creating stands, targets, and even custom tools like the fletching jig my husband designed.
Even though archery has been on hold for a while, we hope to pick it back up soon, and maybe even teach our little archer-in-the-making!
If you’re into archery or crafting, or if you’ve had similar experiences, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to share your own stories, tips or suggestions in the comments section below. Let’s keep this craft-loving community going!
by Rici86.
