The nice folks over at A Commonplace Book linked to a nifty article by Doug Strong. He did a statistical analysis of 250 effigies in England, and broke down their armor into bar graphs per decade. Thus, I can look at the 1380’s and see that while my arm rig, gauntlets, and breastplate are great, my lack of real greaves and sabatons are woefully anachronistic. (Good thing I play in the SCA, right?)

It’s also interesting to see these graphs in relation to the 100 Years War. When you consider the Battles of Crecy and Poitiers, in 1337 and 1356 respectively, you see a bunch of different styles of armor quickly getting drilled down to one major one and a few examples of a runner up. In most cases, by the 1360’s, armor has standardized to a single type. However, you don’t see huge changes in the 1420’s after Agincourt in 1415.

There are a fair number of things I want to make / organize the making of for the barony. Still working on plans for that – the problem with regalia is that it ought to be spiffy but persona (and gender, and size) neutral, which is somewhat difficult. While I’d like to make some Court livery for the Champions and Officers, I can’t think of anything other than baldrics, or perhaps hoods or cloaks, that would work. Though fancy embroidered or appliqued baldrics WOULD have some spiff factor.

Now that I have some space, with the house and all, I’d like to do some more silk painting. I still owe a few banners, and I’d like to do yet another one for WM as well – we have some gorgeous emnoidered ones, but one can never have too many banners…

I plan on fighting at war this year, so my armor needs help. So does Girard’s – I think his gambeson is held together by hope.

This, other random stuff, and… Oh! I am going to try to have a garden this year. We bought seeds, and I started the ones that needed starting, and I even identified the one eligible sunny spot in my yard. Next step – raised beds.