Egads faire season is almost upon us!

[Sir Brian]

 
It’s already the second week of February and I still have several items to get done on my kits! I still have to:

~ Repair and repaint the crest on my great helm.
~ Tailor my haubergeon, even though I don’t have my loose rings and riveting
   tool yet I can probably cut the links and either lace it together or use butted
   links for fitting purposes.
~ My new ¾ leather arms should arrive today so I may have to add a couple of
   arming points to my gambeson which would be a higher priority as the arms
   will double as my primary arm protection with WMA class.
~ Add a chin strap to my bascinet.
~ Make a better fitting padded coif for my bascinet, or cheat and
    buy a rugby helmet!

So how is everyone else doing with their ‘TO DO’ list? 

[Sir Edward]

Wow, I haven't started on anything new yet this season. I still have some ideas floating around, and some unfinished projects. But I need to start prioritizing a little I think.

VARF auditions and rehearsals will be starting up soon, which always means the faire season is right behind it.

[Sir Brian]

VARF auditions and rehearsals will be starting up soon, which always means the faire season is right behind it.

Speaking of which, did you want to send out some feelers to the VARF management and see if they would allow our Order to hold a longsword demonstration or two during this year’s run? That is if we are still interested in doing such displays? 

[Sir Edward]

I'll talk to Kat about it tonight, since she's more familiar with how they manage their shows etc.

The potential issues I see are basically this-- They would probably want us to audition as an actual "act", like a stage show. So we'd have to have something complete and functioning in advance. Also, they'd want it to be in-context to their period as much as possible, which would probably mean Elizabethan garb (even if it's lower-class, or middle-class doublets and tights, etc).

The good news is that longsword combat was alive and well at this time, but it had become a sport rather than a real martial art meant for war or judicial dueling. It was on the decline, but some of the surviving manuscripts used in our WMA/HEMA reconstructions were written during this time.

I'll see what Kat's thoughts are. I'm not sure how amenable they'd be to relatively unscripted demonstrations, versus a scripted show on a regular schedule. But maybe we can get some ideas as to what they'd be interested in, and whether we can do that.

[Sir James A]

I spent some time working on my splinted leather gear this past weekend, and got the cuisses, greaves, upper and lower arms strapped, and pointing holes w/grommets in the spaulders. I cut the straps from a side of leather, I did cheat and buy buckles, but I did all the punching and riveting myself by hand on my handy-dandy tiny 2 pound anvil. I spent the next 4 hours wearing them around the house to check the movement and flexibility. The greaves and cuisse are only 3/4 wrap, so I'll be eventually doing some "cheater chausses" after I tailor my other mail and hopefully have a few "patches" to use as kick-starters towards the chausses. Oh, I took pics of the strap and buckles process, along with peening rivets, so I'll make a tutorial of that later this week hopefully.

Besides that - still need to tailor my "early" mail kit, replace the leather hinges on my greaves and sabatons with steel hinges, strap the sabatons, come up with some sort of shadow box display for the rest of my mail, make some padded chausses, and then see if I can get myself into some more "trouble" setting up a proper corner of the garage for light armor work - my wife brought me a 55 lb anvil sunday afternoon.

[Sir Edward]

my wife brought me a 55 lb anvil sunday afternoon.

Now that's awesome. Congrats!

[SirNathanQ]

I'd be open to doing some sparring and an act. Only thing is I have almost no real rennaisance kits on par with my medieval ones. 

As for my to-do list, I need to finish those shields,
Get a Tinker Norman,
and that's about it for stuff I need to do for upcoming faires. 

Also for summer, my project is to make a Templar knight kit. That's the big one.

[Sir Patrick]

Also, they'd want it to be in-context to their period as much as possible, which would probably mean Elizabethan garb (even if it's lower-class, or middle-class doublets and tights, etc).

Now I have to add "make giant codpiece" to my list

[Sir William]

Also for summer, my project is to make a Templar knight kit. That's the big one.

Awesome...can't wait to see it!

[Sir Matthew]

I too find myself way behind this off season. I have done virtually nothing, so I have many projects from last season to finish and some new ones to begin. Guess I need to get off my duff and get moving.