Make a Basket Quiver for Your Blowgun Darts

If you are going to take the time to make a handmade river cane blowgun and a nice set of thistle or raw cotton darts, why not take an extra hour or two and make an authentic looking quiver to carry your darts in?  Pictured below:  Darts in basket quiver

 Before you make your quiver you will need to gather the raw materials.  The quiver that I am making below is made of honeysuckle vines, so you will need to locate some honeysuckle, pull down the vines, clean them, and put them in water to soak for a day.  The soaking will soften the vines and make them more pliable.  Pictured below: top, Honeysuckle vines; center, Cleaned vines; bottom, Vines soaking in water.

After the vines have soaked overnight cut four pieces for the warps of you basket.  Three of the pieces should be about 32 inches long, and one piece should be about 18 inches long.  Pictured below: Warps cut to length

Take the three long warps and tie them together in a start shape using any string that you have available.  Tie in the shorter warp with about 2 inches sticking across the point where the other warps are tied together.  The knots don't have to be pretty.  This is just temporary and will be cut loose once you have the basket going.  Pictured below.  Warps tied together

Now we can start weaving in our weft.  Select the longest piece of honeysuckle that you have and start your weaving where the warps cross.  Push the weft down under one warp and then take it over the next warp.  Go under the next warp and over the next warp.  Continue weaving around and around the basket.  Notice that because of the odd number of warps that your weft will go under a warp one time and then over the same warp the next time around.  Keep your weft pushed in tight to the layer below it so that you don’t have gaps in the wall of the basket.  Pictured below: Weft woven around warps

After you've made a few turns around the basket with the weft, it's time to start turning the sides of the basket up. Pictured below:  Ready to turn the warps up

Continue weaving the weft while bending the warps gently in so that the basket will form a narrow tube.  Pictured below:  Warps turned up to form sides of the basket

Continue weaving the weft until the basket is tall enough to hold your darts.  If the weft ends while you are weaving just cut it off so that it is held in place in back of one of the warps, Then back up two warps, start a new weft in back of this warp, and continue weaving..  Pictured below:  This is as tall as this basket quiver needs to be

Now it is time to finish out the top of the basket.  The warps are probably pretty dray by now, so you will want to soak the basket in water for a couple of hours to soften it back up again.  After soaking, select any warp and gently bend it over as shown below.

Cut the end of the warp off so that you have about an inch and a half more warp the you need to reach to the hole next to the second warp away.  Now gently bend the end of the warp down and insert it into the hole next to the second warp away.  Pictured below:  Ready to push warp down to finish basket top

Do this with all of the warps except one.  Pictured below:  Two views of the finished basket rim

Leave the last wart long enough that you can push it down into the hole about 3 inches and still have a loop sticking up above the basket rim.  Pictured below:  Belt loop on basket rim

Shred up a little cedar bark and pack it down into the bottom of the quiver.  This will protect your dart points and keep the darts from slipping through any holes in the bottom of the quiver.

You're done.  Strap it on your belt, and your blow darts will look great in this authentic looking quiver.