Captain Dick's

"Arrow Block"

As many folks on Treadle On know, I am active in traditional archery. I attended the North American Longbow Safari in Calgary, AB this year. This is a very major and special shoot. (Go to: http://www.howardhilllongbowmen.com/adventures/nals2007/nals2007.html That's a long link and I can't make it active, but you can cut and paste it if you want to see the whole adventure.) Anyway, at this shoot I won a fabulous new Check Mate Longhorn Longbow.

 

I attended this shoot in 2006 when it was held in Oregon and I intend to attend it again next year in South Dakota. I thought that after winning such a great prize, it would only be right if i offered something worthy as a prize next year. Since quilts are what I make, I decided to make an archery related quilt.

One of the big events at the NALS is what they call "The Long Elk Shoot", in which participants shoot at an life size styrofoam elk at a very long distance for bow and arrow... this year it was 180 yards! I devoted some thought to developing a really nice "arrow block" and plan to make a quilt to be offered at next year's shoot.

This page will show the block I came up with and a few possible layouts for it.

Captain Dick

 

This block measures 6 1/2" X 14 1/2" (6" x 14" finished size). If you study it, you can see that consists of 6 HST's (half-square triangles), assembled in pairs, with one of the pairs assembled opposite of the other two. One pair makes the arrow point and two pairs make the feather. The HST's are made up as 3 1/2", then assembled into 6 1/2" x 3 12" units. The arrow shaft is a standard 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" Three Stripe block. The only catch to making this whole block is tht as described so far, if you put the shaft on top of the feather blocks, they don't line up. The feather comes to a point. To correct this, you trim off one inch of the top of the completed feather unit.

Here is a step by step:

 

 

Here are two 3 1/2" HST's assembled into the arrrow head

 

 

Here is a 6 1/2" Three Stripe as the shaft

 

Here the arrow head and the shaft have been joined

 

 

 

Here are four HST's being assembled as the feathers

 

 

The feathers have been assembled, but, they don't match up...

 

Here you can really see the failure to match up. The solution is to trim the top of the feather just enough that, allowing for the necessary 1/4" seams on each unit, the finished shaft/feather match will look right.

 

The trim amount turned out to be 1". Cut one inch off the top of the feather unit and sew the feather unit to the shaft.

 

Here are some finished blocks just set out to see what they might look like

 

There are a number of ways you can set them, as I'll show below.

 

 

I scanned a finished block and then made copies and did glue-ups to see what the various settings might look like. The arrows can be lined up, or staggered, and can all point in one direction or go both ways. I'm kind of calling the quilt that goes both ways "Arrows at Agincourt" (the battle in which England established its independance and which established the longbow as the major weapon of its day.) Obviously, in this battle arrows were going both ways, hence the name for this setting. In settings where the arrows all go the same way, I'm referring to the quilt as "Arrows at the Long Elk... NALS 2008, in in this event all the arrows fly at once and in the same direction. (That's quite a sight, incidentally.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I asked the Onions what they thought of the diferent arrangements, almost all liked #2 and #6 best. A few liked the secondary effect of the staggered feathers, but most found it detracted from the theme. I had come to the same conclusion myself. I'm still looking forward to seeing what it would look like in a more scrappy effect.

 

Finally, Barb Schillinger came up with another potential arrangement. Here it is with her comments:

"Dick: Two of them almost makes a square block. Maybe too chaotic, though? You could always sash or put plain blocks between. Want me to send you the little cut-outs of your block? They're very fun to play with. It's a great block. It would make a great border for a cowboys and indians quilt, too. Barb"

:

You could undoubtedly make this block square if you worked at it. You could make Flying Geese instead of HST's... they are shallower, or you could narrow the width and reduce the length of the shafts. As Barb said, it's fun to play with.

 

Cpatian Dick